Train Talk (Chai & Choo Choos)

I had never heard of this book though I have another book by Bill Aitken (Seven Sacred Rivers) here on my bookshelf. It seems to be a really rare book. Amazon.co.uk doesn't list it and amazon.com just provides links to used-book dealers who are demanding prices from $174 upwards for a copy. No public library in Germany has a copy. I'd love to read it as this is just the sort journey I wanted to make ever since I started reading the Indian Bradshaw at the age of seven or so.

Now for something about a broad-gauge line - I just checked erail and found that there are three daily trains running between Dildrnagar and Tarighat. This line terminates on the South bank of the Ganga and at one time there used to be* a pontoon bridge (road only) across the river which was dismantled in the monsoon season. So strictly speaking this was the lowest "dry" crossing of the Ganga in India till the Mokamah bridge was built in 1960 or thereabouts. This was the quickest way of getting from Patna to Ghazipur.**

* Does it still exist?

Warning: quirky piece of information -
** That's where Cornwallis' tomb stands.

Bill Aitken contributed a piece about the metre gauge Palace on Wheels to The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories mentioned previously.

I paid 70Rs for it! I feel that I should read it again now if it is so sought after.

It was from reading Seven Sacred Rivers that I was first interested in visiting the Narmada area . There is also The Nanda Devi Affair.

Thanks. I'm pretty sure i-player isn't available outside the UK, I don't know if there is a way around it.

Harry Potter?

I think that Klompen recently posted about a way to solve this on an another thread. He does drop in here from time to time so maybe he could confirm/deny.

Correct. Award yourself a cream tea.

You can get around i-player restrictions, which arise from the fact that the BBC may not have rights to show/broadcast its programs in other countries, by the use of a "proxy server" or a "VPN." Thus, you can appear to be in the UK, as you will be communicating with the BBC servers via a machine which is in the UK, which will relay the data to you.

There are free services and paid-for services. The former are probably slower and less reliable, the latter are ( obviously --- ) more expensive.

Can I have a cream tea too, please? Kindly courier it to me

Well I have now finished re-reading Bill Aitken's Travels by a Lesser Line and what an odd book it is! But entertaining and at times charming, rather like its author I guess.

It is very badly put together - as I said before there's no index and there doesn't seem to have been ANY editor involved - and there are so many mistakes in spelling, punctuation, words missing, lines missing ... Occasionally I was completely flummoxed and had no idea what he was trying to say

He seems to be a train-enthusiast rather than an out-and-out train-buff. The train stuff is balanced with lots of other observations and musings and sometimes he goes off the track altogether - there's a whole chunk towards the end in Munnar and Kodaikanal where he doesn't go near a train!

But when he is on the trains he describes it well. One memorable section is when he travels on the footplate of a steam engine on the Kaziranga loop from Mariani Jn to Furkating Jn. Exhilarating! He is impressed with Bikaner station and loco shed but reserves his highest praise for the stations of the South Central zone.

It's a fascinating book in many ways because it was written in the early 90's about travels in the late 80's so before economic liberalisation and the communications revolution, and even though it was clear that steam trains and metre-gauge were approaching their end they were still functioning and it was possible to travel substantial distances by them.

I will quote a few lines which show both what a different time it was - he carries a typewriter! - and what a funny character Bill Aitken is .

So, an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it if only it wasn't so difficult to get hold of .


image source

Perhaps you will have to start hiring out your copy.

Only 65 quid on Amazon Dave, second hand, suggest waiting until the missus is out LOL

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Travels-less...0540277&sr=8-1

I saw a mention of another book by Bill Aitken recommended in a guidebook that I was thumbing through. I looked it up on t'interweb and saw that Amazon will sell a second hand copy for £34.95. The same internet search produced his link to what the great and the good of IM were saying about it in 2004.

Bill Aitken - Exploring Indian Railways

All roads (or tracks ) lead back to IM

I bet that person selling it on Amazon isn't too happy about the pasting it got here from Mr Ber

I wonder if Steven ever managed to give his copy away. Or perhaps he's putting it on e-bay at this very moment.

Can I start a new topic here please?

Railway safes. A friend of mine spent part of his childhood in a small railway station in the back of beyond where his dad worked. He has lots of stories, like how the family would get hot water from the steam engines , but one thing which really fascinated and impressed him was the safes which were used to take cash from the small stations to the headquarters. It wouldn't have been safe to keep cash in the small stations so each train had a safe on it in which the cash would be deposited and then locked in by some ingenious system (with no key) so that the train staff couldn't steal it, and then when the train got to a big station a team of 4 coolies would be needed to lift the safe off the train.

I can't quite understand how it worked but apparently it was very clever.

So, can anyone explain it? Are they still in use? Any photos?

Karachi to Kotri: The First Railways in Pakistan

SMT

I can't get any of the maps, photos or links to work on that Karachi to Kotri link. I'm not sure if it is my ageing laptop or some other problem. Do they work for you?

The maps, photos and links didn't work for me either Dave but I did a search of the site for Khyber Pass Railway and it brought up loads of other railway posts.

Lots of reading for you here