A report by the Guardian, comparing Britain unfavourably to India, may shock those who retain the old ways of seeing the former colony. It is not about the information technology but a traditional industry like the railways. But it is the decline in Britain rather than a breakthrough in India which provoked this comparison. Correspondent Luke Harding travelled by the Taj Express to Agra and found that unlike Britain’s train system, India’s is still working.
The tale of two journeys is completed by John Vidal in London who experiences the chaos on the British rail network and admires the British for putting up with it. ``In India there might be a riot. In the US, verbal abuses would fly. The Germans would find it hard to imagine.‘’ He does find a Gujarati-speaking Britisher stuck at a station saying that trains in India are more reliable.
His counterpart in New Delhi, Harding, finds Veena Chahuhan, on holiday from London, cursing the breakdown-prone central line in her home town and admiring Indian trains serving a country the size of a continent.
If the British press is having to take note of it, the achievement of the Indian Railways should be considered significant. In the transport sector, one big story reported on the front page of The Times was about a mouse that was spotted aboard an Indian plane! And the significance of this tiny creature in Hindu religion was not lost on the correspondent.
Things have changed in India and in Britain since then. Luke Harding reports that the train journey undertaken by him would have pleasantly surprised Gerald Corbett. The train was clean and left within three minutes of the scheduled departure time. For the sake of Britain, he wanted the former railtrack chief to be travelling with him. And as a person accustomed to the pound sterling, he found the journey cheap and also all other things that one can buy while travelling – coffee, breakfast, newspapers, snacks and nylon socks. He gets to meet the ticket inspector and the singing beggar.
``Reserve your seat in advance,‘’ is his tip to prospective travellers. While Luke Harding enjoys himself chatting with his fellow-travellers, John Vidal faces an army of stiff upper lips. His travel plans hit the buffers but he survives the experience to report to The Guardian on the journeys not undertaken and the journeys that continued for hours and hours after they were supposed to have ended. The coaches and the platforms are overflowing. He finds passengers lying down or asleep on the platforms but does not find many trains listed in the truncated emergency time-tables. Those asleep are not disturbed by the announcements about delays or a dodgy train door that scuttles yet another journey.
Passengers keep craning their necks towards the notice boards and the most frequently asked question is: Where is the train?'' And now trainowners are asking: Where are the passengers’'. Rail passengers are leaving in droves and taking to the road transport. Some of the chaos has spilled over to the road network.
A few train operators have lost as many as 50 per cent of their passengers and as many as 30 per cent of their services. This will in turn affect future investments. It may take years to get passengers back. The rail companies have run out of cash. The railtrack is having to give more than 15 million pounds in compensation to the operators.
Britons are fed up with the chaos but their faith in democracy and in rail privatisation remains strong. If a dictator promised to run the British trains on time, they would not exchange their Tony Blair for him.