More odd Indian locomotives

Many of you would have visited the National Rail Museum at Delhi at some time. While there are a lot of things to see there, there are some particularly peculiar locomotives whose unusual nature you may not notice if you are in a hurry to see all the exhibits.

Like this one:

Apart from its odd name, it is a survivor of the only 4-ft gauge line in India though it soon got itself converted to BG. And it must be one of the very few non-British locomotives purchased in the earlier days.

Another non-standard line was the one from Chingleput to Conjeevaram which started off as 3 ft 6 inch but, as in the above case, was soon absorbed by a larger system and converted to metre gauge. None of the locos from there have survived. In recent years this line has been converted to BG as well as electrified, and sees numerous EMUs from Chennai besides a few long-distance trains.

An odd example of industrial locomotive is seen here:

One of the numerous methods used to try to eliminate sparks and flames in volatile atmospheres. Obviously it needed to be “recharged” frequently and was perhaps not convenient for shunting BG wagons.

Odd Indian locomotives-battery electric locomotives

UPDATE in 2021: Includes pictures of the rare NBM-1 locos which were meant for the 2-ft NG lines around Gwalior.

Small electric locomotives run on batteries have been used in mines and similar environments for a long time. As batteries are heavy, you would not find them on a full-sized locomotive unless there was a good reason for it. One example would be for running maintenance trains in underground railways when power is switched off.

Thus we have the battery tender attached to the YCG-1 metre gauge locomotives which ran between Madras Beach and Tambaram from the 1930s. As some of the stations had unwired turnouts, the locomotives had a battery tender to run on if the overhead wires were absent.

By the mid-1960s this section was converted to 25 KV AC and electrification was extended to Villupuram (which remained the only electrified metre gauge section in India). These DC locos were retired and a fleet of AC locos took over. The top half of the picture below shows one at the NRM in Delhi, minus the battery tender.

There were also two battery DC locos (this time on broad gauge) delivered to the old BBCI in 1927. They were to be used for shunting where steam locos were considered undesirable for some reason. There is a picture of it hauling a goods train in Carnac Bunder (under the Bombay Port Trust lines) in an old annual report of IR.

In this case (in the lower picture) the batteries appear to be inside the main body of the loco. However this loco and number 902 are not mentioned in Hughes.

In the upper picture we see a YCG1 which is preserved at the National Rail Museum in Delhi.

Regarding the BBCI locos, JK Daboo’s book mentions that 2 of these Bo-Bo locomotives were purchased in 1927 from WBC (William Beardmore & Co) and English Electric. They were rated at 240 HP continuous.

From the Wikipedia entry for William Beardmore & Co, these locomotives were of class BE and were later renumbered from 901-2 to 20198-99.

Stranger is the case of the NBM-1 narrow gauge (2-foot) locos, 3 of which were built by BHEL in 1987 for the Gwalior branch lines. But one wonders what purpose they served. Perhaps there was an urgent requirement for replacement of steam locos when no suitable diesels were available. However, these routes have been served by the NDM-5 class diesels which were also built at the same time. But I wonder if there is any example anywhere else in the world where battery locos were used for regular service where there was no electrified line to start with.

The origin of these locomotives is shrouded in mystery. It probably has something to do with Madhavrao Scindia (of the former royal family of Gwalior) who was the minister for railways in the late 1980s. Perhaps someone from BHEL sold the idea to him.

3 of these (numbered 21951-53 according to Hughes) were delivered in 1987. They were rated at 80 HP continuous.

Until now no picture of these locos could be found on the net. Finally there was one by visiting railfan Ian Wright from 1988 which appeared on Facebook recently. Note his comments at the top:

Also note that the number 21950 does not tally with 21951-53 mentioned by Hughes.

Another picture of the same loco:

We may guess that they did not last long.

The importance of Reunion island

Reunion may be a tiny island, but there some interesting things about it.

You probably have no idea where it is, so we start with its location:

https://www.google.co.in/maps/@-21.1306888,47.5723779,6z

Its nearest neighbours are the similarly-sized Mauritius and the much larger Madagascar.

What makes it special is its legal status-it is thousands of km from the French mainland but is governed as a part of France (not as a French colony). France, like Britain, had a vast and complicated empire with various grades of colonies. While Britain never declared any faraway colony as a part of Britain, France has done this for the following five:

Reunion (Indian Ocean)

French Guiana (South America)-known for Devil’s Island and Papillon, while its capital Cayenne gave its name to a variety of pepper

Guadeloupe (Caribbean)

Martininque (Caribbean)-known for the Mt Pelee volcanic disaster

Mayotte (Indian Ocean)

In all these places Macron is the president and the Euro is the currency, and members are elected to the French parliament.

This gives rise to some interesting trivia-as one of the world’s longest domestic flights goes from Paris to Reunion (5809 miles/9352 km nonstop). One may say that it is not what one normally understands by a domestic flight. Similarly for flights between Hawaii, Alaska and the “Lower 48” states of the US. And the Netherlands has a similar non-stop flight to Bonaire in the Caribbean. The longest “genuine” domestic flight is between Adler and Khabarovsk in Russia (4287 miles/6902 km). For more on this topic:

http://weekendblitz.com/top-10-longest-domestic-flights-in-the-world/

Then there are other cases like the flights from Calcutta to Port Blair which used to stop at Rangoon up to the mid-70s.

Coming back to Reunion, it is a vacation spot of some importance to the French but it was in the news because of this:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34145127

This piece remains the only identifiable piece of debris from MH 370 ever found. Unfortunately, we are still far from any clue as to how the plane crashed or where more debris can be found. The French authorities seem to feel that the condition of this piece of the “flaperon” indicates that the aircraft ditched at sea rather than crashing at high speed (which would be expected if it ran out of fuel without anyone at the controls). More confusion. Meanwhile, the presence of several varieties of barnacles (not the blue blistering barnacles beloved of fans of Captain Haddock and Tintin) promise to give some indication of where the piece floated on its way to Reunion.

http://habilis.net/blistering-barnacles/

Those who want to keep up with developments in the story can refer to jeffwise.net where the comments are generally more informative than the original posts.

An interesting point of coincidence (or deliberate manipulation, if you are a conspiracy theorist) is that this piece of debris reached the one spot in thousands of square km which is under the control of a technically advanced country which would thoroughly examine it.

The rail tunnel in Baluchistan which appeared on a currency note

The Khojak tunnel on the way from Quetta to Chaman on the Afghan border was one of the earlier marvels of railway engineering in British India. Opened in 1892, it was 12,870 feet long (2.44 miles/3.92 km) and was the longest rail tunnel in South Asia until the Konkan Railway came along over a century later.

The location of most lines in Baluchistan can be seen here: (Kandahar is a little beyond the border at Chaman).

The story of the alternative routes to Quetta is a long and complicated one and will have to wait till another day. Suffice to say that that the Bolan route involved gradients of 1:25 for several miles which was far more severe than any BG or MG main line anywhere else in undivided India. And double tracks were also used because of the slow speeds although there was little passenger traffic north of Quetta.

You may note a station called Hindubagh on the NG line to Fort Sandeman. As you may guess, it became Muslimbagh while the terminus became Zhob before the line closed around 1990.

You can also see the long lonely line to Zahidan in Iran starting off from Spezand. With luck, it has been running passenger trains twice a month for the last few years.

The southern end of the Khojak tunnel started near Shelabagh station. Note the double line though the tunnel.

And this scene appeared on earlier Pakistani currency notes:

(This note was in circulation from 1976 to 2005.)

A longer article about this tunnel can be seen here:

http://pakistaniat.com/2006/12/18/railways-khojak-tunnel/

This site (which became inactive in 2011) contains a number of other articles about Pakistan’s railways by Owais Mughal.

Also see this video of Shelabagh station and the tunnel from 2021:

Axar Patel’s feat: 4 wickets for none

With Hardik Patel grabbing the limelight, it is good to see another Patel doing something more constructive such as helping India A to win an unofficial Test against South Africa A – even if it was a ground deep in the forests of Kerala far from any city.

Until now he has been considered more of a fringe player despite having played over 20 ODIs and T20Is without doing anything memorable, though he is remembered more for the X in his first name.

His 4 wickets for none helped reduce his opponents to 76 all out, giving India A an innings victory as well as a series victory. He had earlier taken 5-92 and scored 69 not out in the same match.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/892977.html

Four wickets for none gives him a share in the world record for the best 4-wicket record, which was also achieved by 8 others including Lala Amarnath (who was 47 years old at the time).

This was a fairly respectable South Africa A side which included 7 Test players and 2 others who had played in T20Is until then.

It is also interesting to see the best 4-wicket hauls in Tests, especially when the record is held by a relatively unknown player from one of the minor Test teams. The second and the third on the list had reasonable Test careers but are forgotten now. And Appleyard’s 4-7 was the key to New Zealand’s unwanted record of 26 all out, while Dilshan added centuries in both innings to his 4-10.

The shortest flights in India and elsewhere (Updated in 2019)

As we have seen in the previous article, there are many international flights which cover over 10,000 km non-stop. The ultimate aim would be to have an aircraft which has a range of about 20,000 km (being half the circumference of the earth) which could travel between any two points on the globe without stopping. It would, of course, be useful to have such a missile and probably the US, Russia and even North Korea must have done something towards this end.

Now we look at short flights in India at present. This would appear to be Mumbai-Pune, operated by a 737-800 of Jet Airways. The point-to point distance is 123 km but distance flown may be as much as 211 km (which can be seen from sites such as http://uk.flightaware.com/ ) Quite wasteful for a 737. Other flights under 200 km include Kolkata-Durgapur (164 km), Diu-Porbandar (167 km), and Kochi-Thiruvanthapuram (195 km, actual distance flown 237 km). Some of these sectors are covered by ATR turboprops, others by 737s or A320s which probably doesn’t do much for fuel efficiency.

In the last decade, there have been flights linking Kanpur and Lucknow (63 km) and Jorhat and Lilabari (also 63 km). In the former case the airports are quite far from the city centre so even ordinary buses may turn out to be faster. However, IIT Kanpur now has a helicopter service linking its campus to Lucknow airport. In the latter case there is no satisfactory land route, and it involves crossing the Brahmaputra where, until recently, there was no bridge for hundreds of kilometres.

The real record was held by the Tripura hopper operated by the then IAC in the early 70s, which linked Calcutta with Agartala, Khowai, Kamalpur and Kailashahr with a DC-3.

The distances were:

Agartala-Khowai: 42 km

Khowai-Kamalpur: 23

Kamalpur-Kailashahr: 28

And there are Pawan Hans helicopter services in Arunachal Pradesh which may have similar sector lengths.

Here is an article about the world’s shortest (and longest) flights:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/The-worlds-shortest-flights/

But the clear champion for the world’s shortest flight goes to Loganair’s flight between Westray and Papa Westray in Scotland’s Orkney Islands. This has been appearing in the Guinness Book since at least the 80s, and many articles and videos can be found on the net. This flight is timetabled at 2 minutes but can cover the distance of less than 3 km in 47 seconds in favorable winds. The present fare appears to be about USD 30. Here is a typical description along with a video:

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/worlds-shortest-commercial-flight-is.html

In 2019, Emirates announced a flight between Dubai and Muscat on an A-380 (which is about 340 km in 40 minutes)-surely an example of overkill. Maybe they could not find any other route for an A380.

For the shortest international flight, we have this 8-minute flight between St Gallen-Altenrhein in Switzerland and Friedrichshafen in southern Germany :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/37858497

Longest non-stop flights within India (Revised in 2019)

(Revised and updated in August 2019).

There are many sources on the net listing the longest non-stop flights. This is as good as any other:

This made one wonder which would be the longest non-stop flights within India. There are numerous websites where the great-circle distance can be found merely by feeding in the airport codes, such as: http://www.gcmap.com/

This site also gives details of the actual distance flown which will be more than the great-circle distance which is the theoretical minimum: http://uk.flightaware.com/

We get these as the four longest non-stop flights wholly within India:

Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram (DEL-TRV): 2224 km great circle, actual 2301 km, time 3 hr 20 minute (scheduled)-one pair of flights by Indigo daily.

Mumbai-Guwahati (BOM-GAU): 2073 km great circle, actual 2207 km, time 2 hr 55 minute (scheduled)-two pairs of flights by Indigo daily.

Delhi-Kochi (DEL-COK): 2040, 2112,3:10

Bengaluru-Guwahati (BLR-GAU): 2036, 2113,2:45

You can expect more changes in the future, such as Delhi-Port Blair.

As you can see, scheduled timings depend on wind and other factors so the DEL-COK flight ends up taking slightly longer than the BOM-GAU flight.

There are various multi-leg flights which are longer: Delhi-Kolkata-Port Blair (1315 + 1301 = 2616) and Dehradun-Delhi-Bengaluru-Thiruvananthapuram (207 + 1703 + 529 =2439 km). A single-leg flight on these routes would be 2480 and 2407 km respectively, which should be technically feasible but would not attract enough traffic to be economic.

The same article also gives details of the longest flights for different aircraft models as well as airlines (though it does not include Spicejet and Indigo): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-stop_flight#Longest_flights

You can also look up the shortest flights, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-stop_flight#Shortest_flights which tells us that the shortest scheduled airline flight is 93 km between Mumbai and Pune, operated by Jet. There are scheduled helicopter flights in the North-East operated by Pawan Hans which may be shorter.

In the Dakota age, there were some legs operated by Indian Airlines which were less than 50 km, as summarized in: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/a-slice-of-history-indian-airlines-in-1972-and-the-tripura-hopper/

which mentioned one sector in Tripura which was 21 km long.

Here is a news item about the DEL-TRV flight:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Tpuram-Delhi-is-the-longest-non-stop-flying-route-now/articleshow/50481743.cms?from=mdr

Catching records in Tests

Note: This was written in August 2015 and has not been updated.

Fielding statistics do not get as much prominence as batting and bowling statistics. Even then, usually the wicketkeeper’s figures are usually given more prominence than that of ordinary fielders.

The present record for catches in the field in an innings is 5 (shared by several, starting with VY Richardson) and in a match it is 8 (where AM Rahane stands alone, followed by several with 7).

Here is a chronological list of all those who have taken 5 catches in an innings:

And a chronological list of all those who have taken 7 or more catches in a match:

VY Richardson had  reasonable success at a batsman for Australia in the 1920s and 1930s, including the Bodyline series. He became the first of several to take 5 catches in an innings in his final Test at Durban. He took one catch in the first innings and 5 in the second.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/7346.html

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62637.html

Later generations would know him better as the maternal grandfather of the Chappell brothers. One can see some family resemblance.

When he passed away in 1969, he had seen Ian well set in the Australian team although Greg and Trevor were yet to play for their country.

In 1974, Greg Chappell became the first to take 7 catches in a match. This came in the series which some called “Reverse Bodyline” where Lillee and Thomson swept all before them in a 4-1 win. He took 3 catches in the first innings and 4 in the second.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63137.html

Thus both the records remained within the family until early 1977, when Yajuvendra Singh made his debut.

It had been a traumatic series for India with England winning three Tests in a row, thus sealing the fate of the series before the 4th Test started. India batted first, but YS did not do much, scoring 8 and 15 in the match. He equalled the innings record in the first innings with 5 catches, and added 2 more in the second to equal the record. India won this Test and the final result was an England win at 3-1.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63177.html

After this, the feat of taking 5 in an innings and 7 in a match became common. But Yajurvindra Singh remains the only one to achieve these on his debut, a small consolation for a disappointing 4-Test career though he did well enough in first-class cricket. He was distantly related to Ranjitsinhji and Duleepsinhji.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/36072.html

We finally move on to the anti-climactic Test at Galle in 2015 where India failed to chase 176-but this was on a ground where the highest winning fourth-innings chase was 99. AM Rahane took 3 catches in the first innings an 5 in the second, thus getting a share in the innings record and becoming the only one to take 8 catches as a fielder in Tests.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/sri-lanka-v-india-2015/engine/match/895773.html

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/277916.html

In all first-class cricket, the record is 7 catches in an innings. There are several with 6 catches:

While the record for a match is 10 by Hammond. Rahane just gets into the top part of the first-class record:

Cricket odds and ends-4

,

This is a follow-up to:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/cricket-odds-and-ends-1/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/cricket-odds-and-ends-2/

and

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/cricket-odds-and-ends-3/

We now explore some other odds and ends. Today we look at the worst career averages by those who took ten wickets in a match, nine wickets in an innings and so on. Later we consider the best averages by those who never took 10wm, 9wi and so on.

These averages are restricted to those who bowled at least 2000 balls. The figures do not include the Test in progress at Galle, and the ICC XI-Aus Test of 2005.

Best average by those who never took 10 wickets in a match:

W Barnes 15.54 (best 9-81 in match)

G Ulyett    20.40 (7-57)

FR Foster 20.57 (8-70)

Best average by those who never took 9 wickets in an innings:

JJ Ferris    12.70 (best 7-37 in innings), includes matches for Aus and Eng

W Barnes  15.54 (6-28)

W Bates    16.42  (7-28)

Best average by those who never took 8 wickets in an innings:

Exactly the same as the above list for those who never took 9 wickets:

Best average by those who never took 7 wickets in an innings:

W Barnes 15.54 (6-28)

FR Foster 20.57 (6-91)

K Higgs    20.74 (6-91)

Best average by those who never took 6 wickets in an innings:

W Attewell          22.35 (4-42)

Shabbir Ahmed  23.03 (5-48)

SR Clark            23.36 (5-32)

Best average by those who never took 5 wickets in an innings:

W Attewell          22.35 (4-42)

M Hendrick        25.83  (4-28)

WKM Benjamin 27.01   (4-46)

Best average by those who never took 4 wickets in an innings:

WJ Cronje              29.95 (3-14)

M Mbangwa           31.43 (3-23)

JV Coney               35.77  (3-28)

Now we take take up the converse cases, starting with

Worst average by those who took 10 wickets in a match:

GRJ Matthews         48.22  (best 10-249 in match,which was the tied Test of 1986)

C Pringle                  46.30  (11-152)

L Sivaramakrishnan 44.03  (12-181)

Worst average by those who took 9 wickets in an innings:

DE Malcolm              37.09 (9-57)

AA Mailey                 33.91 (9-121)

Abdul Qadir              32.80 (9-56)

Worst average by those who took 8 wickets in an innings:

LC Braund                38.51 (8-81)

L Klusener                37.91 (8-64) which was on debut

DE Malcolm              37.09 (9-56)

Worst average by those who took 7 wickets in an innings:

C Pringle                  46.30 (7-52)

RJ Bright                  41.13 (7-87)

Enamul Haque Jr     40.61 (7-95)

Worst average by those who took 6 wickets in an innings:

Manjural Islam          57.32 (6-81)

Shahadat Hussain    51.81 (6-27)

AM Moir                    50.64 (6-155) on debut

Worst average by those who took 5 wickets in an innings:

Rubel Hossain           75.90 (5-166) current player

DR O’Sullivan            68.00 (5-148)

Manjural Islam           57.32 (6-81)

Worst average by those who took 4 wickets in an innings:

IDK Salisbury              76.95 (4-163)

Rubel Hossain            75.90 (5-166) current player

DR O’Sullivan             68.00 (5-148)

Will be back with more quirky figures soon.

Cricket odds and ends-3

First, my thanks to whoever is reading this. According to alexa.com, this blog now ranks among the top million in the world and among the top 50,000 in India-not too bad in 8 months.

This is a follow-up to:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/cricket-odds-and-ends-1/                     and

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/cricket-odds-and-ends-2/

We now explore some other odds and ends. Today we look at the worst career averages by those who scored triple centuries and so on, and the best career averages by those who never got into double figures.

These figures do not include the current Test at Galle and the ICC XI-Aus Test in 2005.

Batting averages are listed only for those who batted for a minimum of 20 innings.

Highest averages for those who never made a triple century:

60.97 RG Pollock (highest 274)

60.83 GA Headley (270*)

60.73 H Sutclife (194)

Highest averages for those who never made a double century:

60.73 H Sutcliffe (194)

56.00 Mominul Haque (181)-current player

55.00 GE Tyldesley (122)

Highest averages for those who never made a century:

37.73 Asim Kamal (99)-which he scored on debut

35.28 BM Laird (92)-also on debut

33.48 KD Mackay (89)

Highest averages for those who never made a fifty:

18.38 JC White (29)

17.66 Tauseef Ahmed (35*)

17.65 MN Hart (45)

Highest averages for those who never got into double figures:

3.11 CN McCarthy (5)

2.00 M Mbangwa (8)

(No one else has played 20 or more innings without getting into double figures.)

Now for the converse cases:

Lowest averages for those who scored triple centuries:

38.76 BB McCullum (302)-current player

40.07 S Jayasuriya (340)

42.18 CH Gayle (333)-current (?) player

Lowest averages for those who scored double centuries:

18.73 JN Gillespie (201*)-his only century came as a night watchman in his last Test.

22.64 Wasim Akram (257*)

24.53 SE Gregory (201)

Lowest averages for those who scored centuries:

13.64 JE Taylor (106)-current player

14.48 Saqlain Mushtaq (101*)

16.60 Nasim-ul-Ghani (101)

Lowest averages for those who scored fifties

6.75 RW Blair (64*)

7.51 GD McGrath (61)

8.72 Ghulam Ahmed (50)

Lowest averages for those who got into double figures

2.29 JV Saunders (11*)

2.36 CS Martin (12*)

2.62 H Ironmonger (12)

In the next instalment, we take up a similar study of bowling averages.

Famous Indian trains of the past-and what happened to them (Part 2)

Continuing our study on the famous trains numbered 1 and 2 on the Indian Railways in the past.

In 1976, the newcomer  was the 1/2 Golconda Express between Guntur and Secunderabad. This appears to have started running in the late 1960s, probably soon after the new South Central zone came into existence. It still runs on the same route with slightly slower timings, and is ranked as superfast. The only difference you will see is that it now has two rakes instead of one.

The story of the 1/2 Gujarat Mail is different in that it has been around for a long time, but like the Golconda Express it runs on the same route and similar timings. In the 1970s it was said to be having more first class coaches than any other Indian train. (At that time there were only two pairs of Rajdhanis and no Shatabdis). It has the classic late night-early morning pattern of the old Mails. Over the years its timings have improved only marginally.

The 1/2 Delhi/Ahmedabad Mail even lost its number one status on the Northern railway between Rewari and Delhi, where it became 201/202 (presumably to distinguish it from the 1/2 Kalka Mail on broad gauge)

It has a sad story. It remained a Mail until renamed the Yoga Express a few months ago, and never got superfast status. It was earlier considered the best train on the MG route between Ahmedabad and Delhi, but got competition from the Ashram Express since the 70s. Once this route was converted to BG in the 90s, it was extended to Haridwar thus becoming the Ahmedabad-Haridwar Mail and finally the Yoga Express of today. In the mean time a Rajdhani as well as the Ashram Express became more popular on the Ahmedabad-Delhi route. Anyway, gauge conversion has reduced its running time between Ahmedabad and Delhi from 22 hours to 19 hours. It now takes a small detour to stop at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. In case you were wondering, this was before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. But the change to Yoga Express did occur during his tenure.

Finally there is the fastest (?) narrow gauge train which used to run between Gondia and Jabalpur which had its number 1/2 though the SER had the 1/2 Calcutta Mail on the broad gauge as well. It was sometimes listed as the Satpura Express. Today conversion has taken away the first quarter of the route and it runs between Balaghat and Jabalpur. This is likely to be converted to broad gauge by 2016, although the 10001/10002 Express still runs as of date.

Thus ends our sample study of the trains numbered 1 and 2 in 1976 and how they were faring in 2014. Sometime later I plan to go back further to compare the 1/2 of the 1930s with their counterparts of today. This would add a few more such as the Darjeeling Mail, once the pride of the Eastern Bengal Railway.

Famous Indian trains of the past-and what happened to them (Part 1)

In the “romantic” old days of the Indian Railways, the most important trains in each jurisdiction had low numbers-and often the most important trains were the pair 1 and 2 which were invariably Mail trains. We take a look back to the year 1976 (when the system was quite similar to today’s, except that the number of zones was less) and see what happened to the trains numbered 1 and 2 then. Some are still important (if not the most important trains on their route) while others have become quite unimportant.

These were: 1/2 Bombay VT/Howrah Mails via Nagpur (also called the Calcutta Mails via Nagpur) 1/2 Howrah/Kalka Mails via Delhi 1/2 Lucknow/Gauhati Avadh Tirhut Mails (metre gauge) 1/2 Madras/Mangalore Mails 1/2 Guntur/Secunderabad Golconda Expresses 1/2 Bombay Central/Ahmedabad Gujarat Mails 1/2 Ahmedabad/Delhi Mails (though renumbered 201/202 between Rewari and Delhi), metre gauge and even 1/2 Gondia/Jabalpur Expresses on the narrow gauge. We can see that all of these trains had been around for a long time (probably since the 19th century) except for the Golconda Express which was started by the new South Central Railway in the late 1960s. Over the years cities and stations were renamed, the train numbering changed to four digits for most long-distance trains around 1990 and then to 5 digits for all trains in 2010. To begin with, we look at the 1/2 Bombay/Howrah Mails as they were in 1976:

At that time this was the top train on this route as the Geetanjali Express was yet to start. It had the classical Mail timings of the olden days, leaving at night and reaching in the early morning (though in this case there was an intervening day). In 2014, this pair of trains has the rather uninteresting numbers 12809/12810. Those more familiar with the railways can deduce that this pair of trains are superfast (for what it is worth) and “belong” to the South Eastern Railway. The timings then and now:

The entire route is electrified now (about half was electrified in 1976) and timings have come down by about 2 hours. There are other faster trains on the route such as the Geetanjali and Duronto, but the Mail is still considered prestigious by the older generation-particularly in the eastern part of the country.

Now for the 1/2 Howrah/Kalka Mails:

At that time the Rajdhani had been running for several years but was still considered to be too extravagant for most travellers. The Poorva Expresses (often called the AC or Deluxe) were gradually becoming popular. The entire route between Delhi and Howrah was electrified around this time. By 2014, the 1/2 Mails had become 12311/12312, meaning that they were superfast and run by the Eastern Railway. These were the timings:

As we can see, they take almost exactly the same time between Delhi and Howrah. In the mean time there are two Rajdhanis daily which have attracted the upmarket travellers besides two Durontos. So the Kalka Mail has moved down the pecking order although, as in the previous case, the older travellers from eastern India still have high regard for the trains.

On the metre gauge, one of the longest hauls was on the 1/2 Avadh Tirhut Mails between Lucknow (LJN) and Guwahati. Even in the late 70s, there was no broad gauge link from Northern India to the North-East. So this Mail and its poor cousin the 15/16 Lucknow/Guwahati Express were the only links on this route. There was also the Assam Mail which ran on the broad gauge from New Delhi to Barauni, which connected with the metre gauge Mail all the way to Dibrugarh Town.

But over the years it lost its prestige with the coming of the broad gauge on the NER and NFR. By the 90s it became the Avadh Assam Express (demoted from Mail status) was running on BG on practically the same route up to New Jalpaiguri. It was then extended westwards to Delhi and finally to Lalgarh near Bikaner. Eastward it was extended to New Tinsukia. Worse still, it was not even a superfast but merely the 15909/15910 Avadh Assam Express. The 37-hour run between Lucknow and Guwahati (formerly Gauhati) had been reduced to 33 hours. Otherwise, time had not been kind to this train as it was involved in one of India’s worst rail accidents in 1999. (At that time it was running between Delhi and Guwahati). Here is the timetable of the old Mail and of its extended run in 2014. Note that it reaches its destination on the 4th day and has one of the longest runs of any passenger service in India.

To conclude this section we have the 1/2 Madras/Mangalore Mail. I am not sure how old it is as the timetables of the 1930s and 40s show only the Malabar Express on this route. By the 1960s the Mail appeared in its present form. Later the Malabar Express started running from Cochin (and still later further south from Trivandrum) to Mangalore while the 1/2 Mail got a companion West Coast Express by the mid-60s.

Here are the timings in 1976 and of its avatar of 2014, when it had become the 12601/12602 Chennai/Mangaluru Mail (fortunately still superfast) with these timings:

Here the 18-hour run has been reduced to 16 hours although a fair portion of the route is not electrified.

We will take up a few more “number ones” in the next section, which would be up on Aug 11.