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THE PROBLEM WITH INDIAN TRAINS LOOKING LIKE DINOSAURS
Posted by: theevandi
Pop quiz: What are your sensory recollections of sound, sight and smell when asked to picture “Indian Trains”? Did you answer clacking of wheels, smell of urine and blue metal sheets punctuated by...
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squares crossed with iron bars? I did. Our trains are up there with the dinosaurs when it comes to their designs. And this is a problem.
Note: The windows will be mentioned multiple times in this article and that is no accident, because I HATE THEM DAMN WINDOWS!!
Why Outdated Indian Train Designs are Hurting Revenues
Indian Railways’ coach designs catered to everyman when they designed in the 1950s. But today its clientele are mostly the lower, upper lower and the middle economic classes and a minuscule percentage of upper-middle classes. The newly-westernized, post-liberation affluent Indian who would’ve been Indian Railway’s cash cow is not taking the train. Why? Because of their image and their design, which are considered outdated and dirty. All those droves of newly liberated Indians ditched the ancient socialist railways and took to the skies and to gleaming Swedish buses on the roads. Though the airlines ran themselves into the ground (figuratively, of course), private and government operators running intercity coach services are doing very well indeed, despite being a bit of a mafia unto themselves. Free market economy. When you can take a bus which arrives faster than a train, why shouldn’t you? Because there is a real connect between a product’s appearance and their clients’ affinity towards them. Even if it is
Amritam, no one will buy it if it isn’t packaged well. First lesson of marketing.
If you notice, most of those new-yuppie Indians say “ yuck” to the Indian Railways but go all ga-ga about Metro trains and this has got nothing to do with convenience or ease of use. It is just the rake being used and its surroundings that endear the Metro to the upper classes . India’s even marginally elite shun trains for many reasons – vanity being one and speed another – but one of the biggest reasons is that they don’t look the part. Indian trains are not “modern”, sleek and gleaming with fancy (and clean) interiors and all like trains in developed countries. Metro trains are sleek, shiny, “modern”, clean and upmarket while Indian Railways trains are… you know. If Bangalore metro trains were replaced with the rake of the Bangalore-Bangarapet MEMU (though this is not technically possible), its “posh” clientele will flee the Metro like Satan seeing the cross. Those 1950s design rustbuckets smelling of urine are simply not good enough for their standards and sensitivities. However, there is a deeper subconscious reason.
Indian Railways Remind Indians of a Time they don’t Want to Remember
Until the 1980s India was caught in a time warp, with all its products and services spartan, outdated and utilitarian, drab and run down – maroon dabbas on the rails, Ambassador cars on the road and Soviet-design concrete-monstrosity government offices painted in peeling Shellcem paint. It was only after the liberalization of the economy in 1991 that the masses of this country were finally introduced to quality and aesthetics, to glitz, gleam, smooth lines and perfect finishing, as opposed to everything that existed until then. All all this was contributed by the private sector. the government continued to be in its socialism-induced stasis, which is evident by the stark contrast between the today’s corporate buildings, cars, buses, airports and our trains and stations and other government buildings.
A design much younger (and much more colorful) than most Indian trains.
Indian Railways’ trains with their dull, drab liveries and outdated designs remind our “new-gen” Indians of India’s poor, backward socialist era, of the times before it became the economic powerhouse it is now. And Indians don’t like to be reminded of that era. Indian trains also remind Indians of the government and its corrupt, bureaucratic, unresponsive, slow, inefficient, unimaginative workings, of musty offices full of dusty files and unresponsive people. And Indians don’t like to be reminded of (their) government either. Which is why if not privatized, railway coach design of Indian trains need to be completely overhauled to become more contemporary if we are ever to catch up with the rest of the world and to also bring back cash to the railways.
The (Short) Story of Indian Railway Coach Design
In 1955 the now-defunct Swiss Car and Elevator Manufacturing Company of Schlieren, Zurich, Switzerland designed and delivered brand new models of coaches to be used across Indian Railways. These fully iron-and-steel coaches were a world apart from the wooden framed coaches used until then, featuring the most advanced technology of the time: coaches of integral (the entire coach is created as one unit), anti-telescoping (tubular) design, very rugged, utilitarian and functional. They also helped establish the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur (ICF), Chennai, transferred technology and trained our people to produce coaches (shells at first) and bogies. The same coach shell and bogies would be used for all types of coaches, only the interior furnishings would change. These coaches came to be known as ICF coaches. It was a revolution.
Yes, this is a Swiss train.
So after this, design of our trains would be upgraded every 10 years or so, right? No. 20 years? How about never? Yeah, our train designs, window bars and all, are classic 1950 retro models, 65 year old vintage items that should be in museums and not running on tracks. A major change in design happened only in 1993 when AC 3 tier coaches were introduced and the small square windows gave way to elongated windows. Everything else remained the same. Then in 1995 somebody woke up from a 40 year-hypersleep and realized our trains to be a bit behind the times.
Hence arrived brand-new higher-capacity, high-speed, lightweight stainless steel and aluminium coaches (AC only) from Linke-Hoffmann Busch (LHB) of Germany (now part of Alstom) as high-tech as any in the world (as ICF coaches were in 1955) on high-speed Fiat bodies with lateral dampeners and disc brakes. LHB coaches were a major jump and are today used to run on all Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto and some normal express trains. Most importantly LHB coaches have big windows and airy, bright interiors all white aluminium and plastic. And then came the shocker! Non-AC LHB coaches STILL featured those same old cubbyhole windows!!
Yes, Mr.Dracula, they now come in red too.
Why were these designs never upgraded? Because monopoly, no incentives to do so, Indian socialism, apathy, corruption, status quo, babu-politician-contractor nexus, “ this is enough for us” and “Chalta hai bhai, India hai” I guess. As a nation and people we give zero priority to aesthetics, resulting in boxy trains with uneven surfaces, fading paint, gaps everywhere, knobbly welding and bad materials. Even newer products like the Double Decker coaches showcase terrible workmanship of products thoughtlessly hammered together. The reason for this: all-prevalent apathy of government departments and #IndianCulture where being utilitarian pays.
A bit about Indian train liveries: Until the early 1990s, trains in India came in a big, rich palette of many beautiful liveries (color schemes). Yellow-Green-Yellow,
Yellow-Green, Red, Red-White/Yellow/Orange-Red, Red-White-Blue, Orange-Yellow, Orange-Cream, Yellow-Red-Purple, Pink-Cream, Brown-Cream-Brown,
Cream-Brown/Orange/Blue, All-Blue, Silver, Blue-White, Green-Blue and so many others. Trains were identified by and abored for their color schemes. Then some bureaucrat in the railways decided that all that colorful shit is for losers, and going nuts on standardization, IR blanked-painted all coaches in rust-color Maroon, thereby lending credence to the name “rust buckets”. Then came air-braked coaches and to differentiate them from older air-braked (maroon) coaches, they were painted blue-blue-bluer and this color scheme was very imaginatively called “Vibgyor”! Hahaha. This continues even today and except for Rajdhanis, Shatabdis, Durontos, Garib Raths, Jan Shatabdis, Double Deckers, and the luxury trains, all Indian trains are blue. Damn blue dabbas everywhere. Like I said, no imagination.
Indian Railways Should Make Trains More Aesthetically Pleasing
The time has come when it has become a matter of survival for the railways to innovate, increase speeds, turn out better looking and comfortable coaches or perish, thereby depriving millions of Indians who cannot afford private transportation of options to travel. What the railways should do immediately is to modernize our trains to make them “look” good. Because with better aesthetics come increased comfort and better hygiene, leading to better passenger experience. Resulting “good vibes” will translate into revenue. What Indian Railways should do:
Ditch ICF coach design; stop their production immediately, today, now.
Ramp up LHB production. Commission all planned coach building factories.
Operate using EMU Trainset rakes in a phased manner >>
Fully Air Conditioned trains (Rajdhani, Duronto, Shatabdi, Garib Rath, AC Expresses)
Later all important Superfasts (Crack SFs, Mails, etc and Intercity day trains)
All passenger, regional and local trains
Use LHB coaches to run all other trains (random expresses, weeklies etc)
Completely redesign the goddamn toilets (vacuum toilets?)
Brighter, livelier, pleasing interiors, please (do away with the blue)
Bring better, beautiful and distinct liveries for different trains
Ensure high-quality finishing and materials
Automatic Doors. For all coaches. In all trains.
Cover the underbodies of coaches to improve aerodynamics
Kick the shit out of people who damage stuff
This alone will transform Indian Railways beyond recognition. But first, DO AWAY WITH THOSE GODDAMN CUBBYHOLE WINDOWS!!
This complete redesign of our trains should start with the redesign of those small-windowed (with window bars) non-AC coaches. Of course, the easier way to solve this problem would be to make ALL our trains air-conditioned. That is a tall order, so let us not talk about it. Anyway, AC coaches are easy to design and but non-AC coaches aren’t so – we can’t just do away with window bars because we know what will happen. But India is not the only country in the world running non-AC coaches. In India itself, Jan Shatabdi Expresses are run using coaches which have large(er) windows with sliding glass. Why not make JS coaches the standard for Non-AC coach design? Please?
Or can we design the windows to look like something like this below? A non air-conditioned coach of the German Railway (Deutsche Bahn).
Or like this Czech coach maybe?
The main reason for this cacophony of bigger windows is that they will make interiors of trains more bright and airy and hence more welcoming. All those mica and metal paneling inside non-AC coaches should go as well, but that has already been taken care of in the new LHB coaches, though sadly, the window design remains.
Indian Railways Need to Move with the Times
Whatever it is, our trains have to be made to look more contemporary, which is the best way to draw people back to them. However, “Improvement in design” does not just mean bigger windows, but improvement in design of everything, including interiors, toilets and vestibules. Yes, this is about the biggest complaint everyone seems to have about our trains: their hygiene, namely, toilets. Indian Railways’ dirty toilets are legendary. They are dirty simply because they are so designed that it is impossible to use them without dirtying them (water on the floor), and also because they were designed for 1960s use when people didn’t give many shits (pardon the pun) about cleanliness in trains and such. And add to that the general carelessness of people using them.
A Chinese Train Toilet. Better design and noticeably cleaner
Indian Railways trains are probably the most outdated designs in the world for any mode of transportation. Indians can only sigh looking at the beautiful trains abroad, where, even local trains (forget bullet trains) can look make our Rajdhanis look like a bunch of scrap metal. Our locomotives are very powerful and our railways are doing an awesome work under the circumstances, but they will also have to look the part. We should stop worshiping the status quo and liberate ourselves. If Indian Railways cannot bring in new designs themselves, they should buy from Alstom or Bombardier or
Stadler or Siemens. But the best method would be to decentralize and to allow zonal railways buy trains of their choice, removing ICF and RCF monopolies churning out the same kind of coaches.
Going a bit further in accordance of the
Bibek Debroy report, allowing private railways to operate alongside Indian Railways trains will drastically improve all our trains in one shot. Look at the road sector. Earlier it was either Ashok Leyland or Tata buses. Today the commuter can choose between Volvo, Mercedes, Scania, Eicher, Isuzu, AL or Tata, resulting in improvement in quality of all of these! This is what the Bibek Debroy report suggests. Indian Railways is the last large government monopoly in India. The best way for our trains to look better would be to dismantle this monopoly, albeit in stages and staggered. Beautiful trains in beautiful colors will definitely be an image boost for India. Looking forward to awesome Indian trains!
Hopefully the Kottayam-Ernakulam Passenger of the future.
Of course improving designs alone will not solve India’s railway problems, this post was only about that specific issue. Read about other problems here: Why Indian Trains run so slow and other associated infrastructural problems, Why
no new trains can be introduced on Indian Railways, Why we can’t run high speed trains on our networks, How to solve Bangalore’s traffic problems and
Overhauling Mumbai’s railway systems.
Link click here