Waiting at Chennai Central

Unlike the last time, I had not forgotten anything at home when I left for the station. So there was no need to return back home, once I had left it.

Everything went on smoothly – I had dinner, got a bus and reached Chennai Central at 9pm. Well before the departure time of 9:45pm. The train was to depart from platform no 3. So I reached platform 3, and all my dreams of a smooth journey to Bangalore came crashing down.

The rake(bogies of the train sans the engine) had not yet arrived on the platform. From the vast experience that I had after traveling in trains, I knew that the rake arrived at the originating station one hour before departure. So in my case, the rake should have arrived on platform 3 at 8:45pm, but the rake had not arrived even at 9:15pm. I smelt trouble.

The rake finally arrived at 9:35pm and I was all set to sleep within 10 minutes – I was waiting for the train to leave. I kept looking at the watch, it showed 9:45pm, after sometime it was 10pm, but the train had not budged. So I ventured out into the platform to see what the trouble was.

In the very next platform I could see Allappey Express – it was supposed to leave at 9:15pm. So I knew, that there was some trouble and the trains would be late. Enquiries with TTE’s and RAF’s proved to be futile. Those poor souls were also trying to find out why we were late. There were no announcements from the control room either.

Finally after walking up and down the platform for the nth time, there was an announcement at 10:45pm. “Due to power tripping at a station after Arakkonam, all trains would be late by half an hour.” This announcement was made after our train was already an hour late and there was another train – Nilgiri Express – which was 2 hours late.

I made a trip to the row of shops, to buy a Pepsi, and finding no other way to kill time, I called my parents and told them about the development. Then I called up Ganesh and talked to him for sometime.

At 11:15pm another announcement came. “Due to power tripping at a station after Arakkonam, all trains would be late by an hour.” It was not getting any better. We had been waiting for an hour and half, and announcements were being made that the trains would be late by an hour.

All announcements were being made in Tamil till now. Soon after the announcements at 11:15pm, the lady gave an announcement in English. It was one of the worst sentence anyone could make in English – full of grammatical mistakes – and it did not make any sense. Since I knew Tamil, I understood that she was trying her best to convey the message from the previous announcements in Tamil, in English.

The power was restored to the tracks by 11:30pm. The first trains started moving out and our train slowly chugged out at 11:50pm. The train was 2 hours late, and I was hoping that it makes up for the lost time during the night. I was expecting the train to arrive 1 and half hours late.

The train arrived 3 hours late at Bangalore!!!!!

Hail Indian Railways!!!!