Mumbai: Worlds Busiest Railways...

[Bungle965]

The lunch men really are impressive I seen to remember a top gear episode where the 3 of them tried to beat the train to deliver the lunch. And failed miserably.
Sam

 

[deltic]

Just watched the first two episodes on iplayer - fascinating and as others have said very old school. One aspect I couldnt get my head around was that they said it takes 12 years to become a train driver and certainly most drivers seemed older - also didnt notice any women drivers. What do they do over that 12 year period?

 

[Springs Branch]

What do they do over that 12 year period?

Maybe they still have a system like the "old" railway in UK where you had to serve your time in a series of less prestigious jobs during that 12 years before you got your hands on the train controls?

Another question - how do they manage fare collection on those massively overcrowded suburban lines? I know fares are cheap, but surely they can't have fare gates or effective manual inspection for the huge number of passengers travelling at rush hour.

 

[Bungle965]

I seem to render seeing a guard on one of the suburban trains. But I am not sure he does any ticket checks.
Sam

 

[deltic]

Maybe they still have a system like the "old" railway in UK where you had to serve your time in a series of less prestigious jobs during that 12 years before you got your hands on the train controls?

Another question - how do they manage fare collection on those massively overcrowded suburban lines? I know fares are cheap, but surely they can't have fare gates or effective manual inspection for the huge number of passengers travelling at rush hour.

They have roving ticket inspectors and the penalty for not having a ticket is fairly high. However, a quick google search suggests fare evasion is high.

 

[GodAtum]

How people stand up for 33 hours in beyond belief!

 

[jonty14]

I wonder if its shown on BBC World as the iplayer sadly does not work outside the UK

Try www.viewabroad.com and www.wemissourtv.com.
I live in Germany and these websites are a God send for me.

 

[GodAtum]

Just saw the section on train drivers. This one driver had 25-30 one-unders happen to him in 12 years! I wonder how they cope. I wonder when they hit someone the lines are closed like in the UK? They dont seem to have any uniforms or ID.

 

[GlosRail]

A lot of newer rolling stock than we have got over here. They said a lot of between 3 and 25 years old, and we still have plenty of 30 year plus rolling stock over here.

Not sure I'd want to be hanging on a train with no doors.

 

[crispy1978]

Saw episode three last night.

The section on the drivers with the trespassing was very interesting. Certainly seems more of an 'occupational hazard' there than here.

The crowded trains are just crazy though!

Thought the bit with the signals and John Sargeant was interesting - I never realised they came with the safety features they do.

Looking forward to episode 4 which I might get to see tonight.

 

[GodAtum]

The part about the rioting was interesting. It's a shame south Londoners don't riot when the train service is screwed! It seems to me that the Indian railways are much more focused on generating money for Mumbai, then here were TOCs are more focused on generating money for themselves.

 

[tony6499]

I'd imagine the fatality is treated differently, just come along and pick up the bits without shutting down all the lines

 

[Robertj21a]

Just saw the section on train drivers. This one driver had 25-30 one-unders happen to him in 12 years! I wonder how they cope. I wonder when they hit someone the lines are closed like in the UK? They dont seem to have any uniforms or ID.

Mumbai train lines are only closed for a short period to allow the various body parts to be removed, then it's back to normal working - life is cheap(er).

 

[Springs Branch]

Mumbai train lines are only closed for a short period to allow the various body parts to be removed, then it's back to normal working - life is cheap(er).

I remember seeing a TV documentary on Mumbai railways a few years ago where someone explained the procedure after a one-under out on the line. Basically the train continued to the next station and the guard handed a chit to the station master saying "please go to KM xxx and remove body". Cheap life indeed.

 

[GodAtum]

Just watched the last episode. I had a few Indian collegues come over to London once. The lady did not want to travel on the tube as it was culturally unacceptable for her to be so close to men.
I'm sure the metal detectors and bag scanners dont look like they are being used?
It's funny how they can keep trains running in up to 10cm of water and Network Rail cant clean up a few leaves! All we need a leaf-pickers, like the muck-pickers they have.

 

[Caravanman]

Glad to see most people enjoyed the programmes, as I did.
One aspect of the dabba walla food delivery men that was not mentioned was the "caste system". Although India plays down it's existence, I gather that even eating food that was prepared by a person from different caste can be viewed by conservative folk as a big sin. So getting food from home is much safer.
Probably the younger generation will not be so strict... there is a McDonalds outside CST station!
There are many more classes of coach on Indian railways than were mentioned... a good read is the http://www.seat61.com/India.htm website as a guide to the long distance trains.

Cheers,

Edwin.

 

[kevin5025]

Maybe they still have a system like the "old" railway in UK where you had to serve your time in a series of less prestigious jobs during that 12 years before you got your hands on the train controls?

Another question - how do they manage fare collection on those massively overcrowded suburban lines? I know fares are cheap, but surely they can't have fare gates or effective manual inspection for the huge number of passengers travelling at rush hour.

I don't know, but, on one of the programmes where Robert got to drive an engine he said it was 7 years training before you got to handle a real locomotive! So I am guessing 7 years of training at the college, and then some time on shunting, freight, until 12 years and then you can drive a passenger train (they said it was 12 years of training to drive a passenger train). The other thing I noticed was that in the training school they were, at one point, crowded round the frame of a locomotive learning all about its construction. Maybe it is a very comprehensive training?

They said that they didn't have ticket gates, only random ticket inspections, but that the fine for not having a fare was pretty high, so people tend to buy them.

Absolutely loved the show, it was fantastic. The other thing I thought about was how this was a train show on prime time BBC. They made it interesting to a wide audience, we should learn something about how we explain our hobby to others!

 

[Crossover]

It's funny how they can keep trains running in up to 10cm of water and Network Rail cant clean up a few leaves! All we need a leaf-pickers, like the muck-pickers they have.

The difference being they don't have any issues with running trains past the people working (as per the engineering train that runs between two other live roads)

 

[gazthomas]

On what basis is this actually the world's busiest railway? Based on number of passengers and services Shijuku in Tokyo, Japan is the business railway station!

 

[WatcherZero]

Shinjuku has 2.5m rail passengers a day it looks to have peaked in 2007 at 3.5m (including bus and underground and possibly retail?) and declined since then to 2m heavy rail and 600k underground passengers a day, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus has 3m not counting bus users so its the busiest on a purely heavy rail basis. The five lines of the Mumbai suburban railway has 8m passengers a day (so around a third using CST) the combined usage of the Tokyo lines doesn't quite reach the same level (around 5-6m).

 

[duesselmartin]

also now weekends on BBC World!

 

[ainsworth74]

I've caught up with this now and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very interesting and I thought it was well presented (though I agree by the end they did seem to be re-using some of the footage which made it a bit samey but never dull).

India has been on my list of countries and railway networks that I'd like to visit for some time and every time I see program like this it just makes me want to start looking up flights to Mumbai

 

[Comstock]

I'm currently working my way through this (just watched the first 3) on Iplayer.

I was just wondering when the Mumbai suburban railways were electrified? When did they stop using steam?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

As far as I know, the first wires went up at Mumbai CST in 1925; I'm pretty sure the series mentioned that some of the older units still being used date back to the 1920s / 1930s so are probably from the original fleet.

 

[WatcherZero]

Some of the locomotives were 80 years old but the coaching stock was at most 20 years old as it wore out pretty fast.

 

[Comstock]

As far as I know, the first wires went up at Mumbai CST in 1925; I'm pretty sure the series mentioned that some of the older units still being used date back to the 1920s / 1930s so are probably from the original fleet.

Thanks. Much earlier than I expected......