The Railway Sandwich

The sandwich is the railway they say mighty fine,
They give you bread and stale cheese, almost every other time...

That's just an improvisation of a song I learned at school which went something like
The shoe shop in the army, they say mighty fine,
You ask for number seven, they give you number nine...

Well, this one is not a piece on the catering in the Indian Railways. Personally, I think they are awesome and they make the best Masala Dosa's after MTR. The coffee though has enough room for improvement. In any case kudos to Railway catering, you guys are awesome!

But, I seem to have a problem when it comes to the actual train itself. In my very first blog, or virgin blog if I may say so, I had done a bit on the railways and how chaotic and insane travel can be. Well, I guess it happens to me, only to create an opportunity to be amazed at how crazy the railways could be despite being one of the many wonders.

Taking Murphy's laws into consideration, I booked for a train that leaves for Chennai at close to midnight from Bangalore, to buy me enough time to reach the station in time. But its Murphy's law and I managed to get off work early, get a bus in time to station and ended up reaching the station an hour prior to scheduled arrival of the train, let alone departure.

Laloo and his group of people in the Railway ministry have done an awesome job in the last few years to make the Indian Railways a spectacle. With all due respect to their past innovations, one of their more recent innovations, I feel, went overboard.

What's the innovation? Voila! Its a side middle berth. In a hasty move to generate revenue, the Indian Railways implemented this. The person who gets the lower middle berth has to sit on the larger side of the coach segment. In other words, the side that previously accommodated 3 persons, would now accommodate 4.

Its an idea. But it has certain flaws. Firstly, the berth seating 4 was originally designed to seat 3 person. I haven't taken into account the size of the persons, still it is horribly uncomfortable. Secondly, the persons sitting in the "four seat-er" pay just as much (In some cases more,if booked in tatkal; Don't get me started on that) as the persons sitting as 3 persons in the 3 seat-er. Unfair? Mr. Yadav, If you plan such crappy innovations, see to it that there's going to be differential pricing for these seats.

Next, the ridiculously insane side middle berth - The Railway Sandwich. It completely reminds me of an open coffin. I never thought I'd see the day when I had a chance to be in one and know how it feels. Open it out and you will realize that you either need to be an acrobat or an amoeba to fit in.

But, thankfully, this "innovation" by the Railways has been done away with it because of I cannot guess why. If ever there was a fine line between between cost cutting and being outright cheap, this move certainly erased it. The TTR that day on the train should be thanking his stars that the innovation was done away with and he did not have to face the ire of a passenger who booked in tatkal paying extra only to get the Railway Sandwich, which thankfully he did not.