The Connecting Train

The Connecting Train...

I was supremely confident that the connecting train would await us. Our first train was running five hours late, and thus the onward connecting train was to go away from the large junction at about three hours after the scheduled arrival of our train.

 The majority of passengers who booked this train left to hope. for that train surrendered trust.. I attempted my best to infuse confidence in them by remarking the apparent incontrovertible fact that our reservation tickets showed confirmed births on the connecting train, and therefore, it had been a sacred obligation on the part of the Indian Railways to form the train await us. a number of the depressed co-passengers believed in me. I used to be not only mistaken but was colossally being naive.

Yes, the connecting train left on the scheduled time of departure, quite two hours before our final arrival, leaving us stranded for the night at the station lounge. Of course, the ticket was valid and it had been adjusted within the train leaving early morning the next day for our destination. This was the primary case of missing the connecting train, and it had been by an enormous margin.

The next time, we boarded an equivalent train to attach an equivalent train at the large junction for our onward journey; we were much closer to catching it-missing it by just an hour. and therefore the same routine followed at the station for the first-morning train. It happened for the third time during a row, and therefore the third time was a true big chase of sorts.

That third time our train was running two hours late, then we were very hopeful of catching the connecting train because the time difference was three hours. The nail-biting chase began once we reached a little station about 30 kilometers from the large junction. The train was a touch but two hours late now, and it needed only half an hour more to finish the journey so on yield us enough time to board the connecting train. We got busy packing up, feeling elated that finally, we were getting to make it on our third attempt.

However, the rail gods had another plan for us hapless souls. The train, a superfast one, continued to attend at the nondescript station... for minutes... a half-hour... and more. We were getting really worried because the buffer time we had was drying out fast and furious. Presently we began discussing uproarious, and stronger with wrath and extraordinary bothering. Some experienced souls opined that the platform clearance wasn't given perhaps thanks to heavy local train traffic or even another issues like goods train movement or derailment. Nothing helped though as our irritation gave thanks to plain simple anger.

Finally, our train started moving with but half an hour's time margin for the connecting train as far as we were concerned. It made good progress learning great speed, giving us a renewed lease of hope. We were sure of creating it when it reached the multi-track entry point of the large junction. And then, it stopped again for the ultimate clearance.

We started praying, 'Please let the connecting train leave a couple of minutes late... please... dear rail god!' Perhaps as a solution to our prayers, the train moved again on its final leg. We rushed to the doorway with our luggage anticipating which way the platform would come. We discussed our plan of action: two or three passengers would run immediately for the platform of the connecting, board it and pull the chain while the remainder folks would are available the rear with the combined luggage. I used to be a part of the skilled 'luggage' team.

When we got to the platform, we saw in horror the train leave the platform, perhaps about 7 minutes from the planned takeoff time. However, we saw two passengers of our advance team managing to hop into a teacher. So, we kept moving to hope the train to prevent any moment now. Unfortunately, nothing happened. The connecting train just disappeared ahead of our disbelieving eyes. We were left stranded there with more baggage for comfort.

We took excellent care of the bags, taking turns for sleep within the lounge floor. Early morning we boarded the opposite train as on earlier occasions. At the junction midway on the route, the 2 passengers without luggage getting no benefit by making it to the connecting train, having to spend hours at the new station floor joined us. I immediately asked them, 'Why didn't you pull the chain?' They said they pulled all the chains accessible inside the mentor, yet none of those worked or perhaps their action was ignored by the railway authorities.

We took a solemn pledge, never ever to undertake that specific pair of trains again. and that we did stick with our pledge to the present very day. We learned to be shrewd, reasonable and wise-go for any connecting train when the time gap between the pair is a minimum of 10 hours or more.