Japanese really love their trains – CNN infograph shows how trains are an integral part of Japan

October 11, 2012 at 4:51 pm

Via CNN

Thanks to CNN for this awesome infograph.. Who knew – Japan, with a population of~127 Million people, clocked an amazing 8 Billion trips annually, which put it at the top among nations with most number of trips by train. Interestingly,  next to Japan is India (with a population of 1.2 Billion), who despite its massive population only raked up 7.2 billion trips on its extensive rail network..

Image Courtesy: CNN

Indian State of Bihar Earns Deadly New Reputation By Setting Trains on Fire; India’s Railway Minister: “Such things happen”

August 23, 2009 at 10:46 pm

(Sources contributing to this hybrid report:  BBC, Rediff, & Economic Times)

A group of students travelling without tickets in an air-conditioned railway coach in the northern Indian state of Bihar were recently asked by the ticket examiner to vacate their seats.

burning train,25-april-2009

Image Courtesy: haywards_pk@rediffmail.com via Panoramio.com

Nothing unusual about that, but, in this case, the students took umbrage, and set four coaches on fire.

Panic-stricken passengers on the train travelling between the Indian capital, Delhi, and Rajgir in Bihar, ran out with their bags at Bihta station while the police and railway security looked on helplessly.

Railway authorities totted up the losses: each air-conditioned coach costs eight million rupees ($161,000; £98,000) to manufacture, and the losses from the Bihar incident cost the railways nearly $650,000.

The Economic Times reports that students’ grouse was that one of them had been beaten up by members of the Railway Protection Force when he refused to vacate the AC coach for which he did not have a ticket! The TV footage showed uninjured students proudly proclaiming their ‘achievement’ of setting fire to the train.

“Such things happen” was the reaction of Union railway minister Mamata Banerjee who had stated that no action would be taken against those who had set a train ablaze when it did not stop at their home town in Bihar a few weeks ago. The latest incident where a train was set on fire by students who were not allowed to travel with-out tickets in the AC coaches only demonstrates how a casual ministerial attitude to the destruction of public property encourages more and more mindless mayhem.

The minister needs to pause and think whether her casual attitude to the repeated burning of railway coaches contradicts the oath she took to preserve and protect the nation, its people and property. Her commitment should at the least match that of the RPF personnel who insisted on August 18 that reserved coaches be occupied only by those who bought tickets.

The footage on TV channels of burning trains would have convinced not just Indians but foreigners that India is not a safe place to travel in. A few months ago, when the Australian tennis team refused to play a Davis Cup tie in Chennai in the wake of 26/11, the Union sports minister condemned Tennis Australia for what he perceived as a slur on India’s reputation.

More recently, the Union home minister bought a ticket for the World Badminton Championship in Hyderabad and sat in a non-VIP stand to make the point that the British team was not justified in pulling out of the tournament. “My blood boiled,” he was quoted as saying while reacting to the British team’s stand that it was unsafe to play in India.

Those passengers of the Shramjeevi Express who had to flee on August 18 would be justified in wondering why the Union home minister’s blood did not boil when he saw the footage of the burning train.

In Bihar, people routinely hop on to trains from such illegal “halts” where trains are forced to stop.

Last October, a mob burnt down two air-conditioned coaches of an express train connecting Bhagalpur with New Delhi at Barh railway station.

But why do people in Bihar vent their ire on trains and set them on fire?

A senior police official, Neelmani, says people think authorities will take note of their grievances if they burn important public property like trains.

“When you target railways, you disrupt movement of trains for several hours and then your voice reaches the concerned authorities,” he said.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is dismayed by the train burning spree in his state. “Railways are our lifeline and a government asset. I have asked my officials to go through station video footage and arrest the vandals,” he told the BBC.

The Danapur-Buxar rail section and Danapur-Mokama rail section witnessed five train burning incidents between June 1 to August 18. On the day the Shramjeevi train was burnt, a mob of students set fire to the Kiul Gaya passenger train at Lakhisarai railway station.

In first incident on June 1, students had torched four bogies of two trains at Khusrupur, 32 kilometres east of Patna after the railways withdrew a stop for the Shramjeevi Express there. On July 14 local people set ablaze an AC coach of the Kosi Express at Athamgola railway station.

Earlier this month, students protesting the murder of an owner of a private teaching institute ransacked the Lakhisarai railway station and disrupted the movement of trains.

In fact, trains are attacked in Bihar over every other issue.  Then there is the problem of illegal “halt stations” where trains are forced to stop by local people – there are more than 100 of them in the state, many with actual names: some are named after local politicians and one even after a former president.

And yet while rail travel is unsafe in Bihar, seven federal railway ministers have come from the state.

Click to continue reading the BBC article or the Economic Times Opinion piece.

The Indian Railway King

March 6, 2009 at 12:40 am

(Source: American.com)

How did India’s Huey Long become its Jack Welch?


In his boyhood, long before Lalu Yadav became India’s most unlikely management guru, he sometimes strayed from his cows and scampered barefoot to the railroad tracks. Dodging crowds and porters, he made his way to the first-class cars and, for a few glorious moments, basked in the air conditioning that blasted from the open door. Then the police would spot him and shoo him away, into the moist trackside cowflap where he belonged.

The boy has grown up, but when I meet him in his New Delhi office, he’s still barefoot, and a headache for train conductors everywhere. Lalu Yadav, 61, is now the boss of all 2.4 million Indian Railways employees. When he wants air conditioning, he nods, and a railway employee hops up to twist the dial. As minister of railways, he rules India’s largest employer—one with annual revenues in the tens of billions—from a fine leather sofa, his sandals and a silver spittoon on the floor nearby and a clump of tobacco in his cheek.

Lalu is a happy man: happy to have risen to become rich, beloved, and reviled all over India; happy that a grateful nation credits him with whipping its beleaguered rail system into profitability; and happy that he’s managed to do all this and somehow stay out of jail. Under his leadership, Indian Railways has gone from bankruptcy to billions in just a few years. When Lalu presented his latest budget to Parliament on February 13, he bragged, “Hathi ko cheetah bana diya” (“I have turned an elephant into a cheetah”).

Click here to read the entire article.