Of Mice and Trains

Before turning in yesterday D checked that the taxi to the station we had requested had actually been booked. It had - to the airport. The wedding merry makers did not disturb our sleep too much thanks to the earplugs. This morning's news is not good. The BBC website leads with " Ten million without water in Delhi" and there are stories of trains being blocked by demonstrators. It appears that the Jats are revolting.

We are down in reception for 6.15. "Your car to the airport is ready". Bloody useless shower. And they charge a tenner for the car, a thoroughly beaten up Tata. We check that the driver is now in possession of the correct info and climb in. One last trip past Pyongyang Park, over the river and we are soon at Lucknow Northern Railway station, popularly known as Charbagh. The building is most imposing and features on the Indian Railways Christmas card collection. It also has, for no good reason, a plinthed Darjeeling Himalayan B Class - number 800.

Worryingly the information boards have several trains listed as cancelled. It takes a short while to find ours which should have been due at 7.30. It shows an ETA of 7.45. Let's see. We locate the AC Waiting Room, a tiled hall that must have looked good in 1926 when it was built. D goes foraging and returns with chai and bananas. There is a stall that seems to sell curd (yogurt) but it is unmanned. The time information does not change so at 7.30 we make our way to Platform 5 via the curd stall and find a seat in the shade. Nothing changes on the indicator boards until 8.20 when our train is announced as approaching. We don't have far to walk to coach A1 and we get settled in to our pair of side seats. Once again we are just inside the door but this is less of a problem for a day trip. 

The train gets under way an hour late. Just before departure an entire seating bay's worth of TTEs arrives and park themselves along the corridor.  What is the collective nown for TTEs? We discuss and settle on a 'Ticketing'. Time for our breakfast picnic. Slices of banana dropped into the pot of curd which turns out to be sweetened but still ok. D then commits a cardinal sin by dropping R's spork onto the floor of the train. He is immediately stripped of his Cutlery Management Grade IV badge. Our neighbours all hide behind their cutains so we are reduced to looking out of the window. After a slow start speed picks up and spotting any smaller birds is not possible. The countryside is billiard table flat but is more wooded than further south and east. We do see more Sarus cranes and some groups of Nilgai, the large deer that have somehow become cows in Hindu lore.

Our good progress grinds to a halt at a small station where we are not scheduled to stop. After a while D goes to hang out of the door to see what is going off. Our coach is near the rear of the train. Up at the front a large crowd of passengers have dismounted and are milling about on the track. The TTEs are gathered in a group at our end of the train looking very unconcerned. We are starting to wonder if this is a Jat railblock but after about 40 minutes the hooter blows and there is a scramble to get on the train. As we move forward D sees a gaggle of policemen and a stretcher carrying what appears to be a body covered by a sheet. There was no heavy breaking or emergency stop so it seems unlikely that our train was directly involved. These sort of incidents happen dozens of times each day in India. Very sad.

The delay means that we eventually get to Moradabad Junction an hour and half late. Not a problem as we originally had six and a half hours until taking the Uttaranchal Sampark Kranti Express for the final 78km to Ramnagar. R is deposited in the Waiting room with the luggage while D explores. Here she sees mice and gets twitchy. There is a local train that leaves earlier, stops everywhere and goes much slower but still gets in earlier. D shells out 40 rupees for two Unreserved tickets and we walk from the Waiting Room to Platform 7 which looks to have been part of the old Metre Gauge station. We have taken shorter train trips.  Foolish D has to do it again in both directions as he left his phone plugged into a wall socket.

He gets back to platform 7 to find that R has attracted a large crowd of admirers. Rather like Brian she is a reluctant messiah and confides that she wishes she was back with the mice. A group who are on polio vaccination duties want their photo taken and D obliges although there seems to be no way to get it to them. One young man has good English and explains that the train is always late coming in but that we should be able to get seats and our luggage on the racks. And so it proves. We get a pair of single window seats in the warm late afternoon sunshine and watch the train fill up. The floor of the coach is mainly covered in discarded peanut shells. D is allowed to purchase a ten rupee bag from the peanut walla but told that he must not throw the shells on the floor. Where's the fun in that?

A family with a small girl of around 18 months occupy the seating bay opposite. Dad goes back onto the platform to talk to pals and small girl wants to watch so she toddles across the aisle to sit on R's knee. Dad jumps back on as we start to move but she has lost interest and watches out of window as R tells her about box cars and WDM3s. Then she coos as D plays back today's photos on his camera screen. It comes to an end when R discovers warm wet patches on her knees. Small child is quickly handed back. As night falls a bright orange moon appears fleetingly through the trees like something out of the Jungle Book. At a place called Kishipur most people get off the train leaving us with the peanut shells and the ever ripening odour of the train bog. It's what it's all about.

Our host for the next three days, Ramesh, called earlier to confirm pickup arrangements and there is a jeep waiting to transfer us to the Sparrow Nest homestay. Here we settle in to a spotless and comfortable room and when tonight's other guests, a young couple from London, arrive we sit down to a home cooked dinner of rice, dal, raita and aloo saag with fresh stove top rotis. We are briefed on a 5.30 a.m. departure tomorrow so it is early nights all round.