Excerpts from my book on Train 18

We were nearing the end of the first half of 2018 and, the finer detailing of last minute design modifications, development of sub-assemblies, their endurance testing and manufacturing of shells at ICF were on at maddening speed. In respect of interdependent or interrelated works, each member of the team wanted the other to do his part quickly and the threatening, cajoling and fulmination in the name of Train 18 were the order of the day. One day a Stores officer confided in me that officers used to try to goad him to faster action in name of the GM earlier; now all levels of officers come and express their urgency in the name of Train 18. Mission Train 18 was the CEO of ICF now because its writ ran more than the GM.

King Richard in Shakespeare’s Richard III shouts in the battlefield, “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” The bard perhaps meant it to sound halfway valiant as Richard refuses to forsake the fray although his horse has bit the dust. But since this line became the stuff of irreverent quotation, like "A fool, a fool, a fool, my coxcomb for a fool!", let me restore its honour somewhat. I quoted it not as a quest for something insignificant but for the value and importance of Train 18. “A train, a train! My kingdom for a train!”

At this point in time, we had adequate design models ready for computer-aided verifications & simulations and a comparison with an equivalent conventional train could be presented more scientifically; the performance data in this table turned out to be very close to the results actually obtained in subsequent tests and trials:

Loco hauled Train (20 units: 2 locos, 2 Power cars & 16 AC coaches)	Train 18, a 16 coach train set
Seating: Ex Class (56)  Eco/CC (78) Total capacity: 1204	Seating: Ex Class (52) and  Eco/CC (78, 2  Driver TCs with 44 seats) so the total capacity would be 1128
Space for differently-abled: rudimentary	Space for differently-abled far more spacious & comfortable
Reversal requirements at terminals	No reversal requirement at terminals
Passage from one coach to another through a rickety vestibule	Through passage from one cab to another, all 16 coaches through a wide sealed gangway
Sluggish acceleration & deceleration: 0.2-0.3 m/s2/  Time to reach 130 km/h – 279 sec.	Quick acceleration & deceleration: 0.8-1.0 m/s2  Time to reach 130 km/h – 50 sec.
Poor utilization of on-board space	Full utilization of on-board space
Concentrated weight in locomotives. Higher coupler forces.	Uniform weight distribution. Lower coupler forces.
No redundancy	Good redundancy
Energy efficiency: marginal	Energy efficiency: High, due to aero-nose, fairings bet. coaches, lighter weight & distributed equipment
Interior aesthetics: more of the same	Interior aesthetics: superior & novel
Exterior aesthetics: more of the same	Exterior aesthetics: superior & novel
Conventional bio-toilets	Superior bio-vacuum toilets
No PIS worth the name	GPS based conspicuous PIS

The broad technical specification of the train would be as under:

·      160 km/h speed; 180 km/h test speed 

·      Maximum design axle load: 17 t, preliminary designed achieving 16.5 t

·      Starting acceleration: 0.8 m/sec² and Peak deceleration: 1 m/ sec²

·      16-coach Chair Car configuration with 50 % powering

·      4-Car basic unit. with  a Pantograph per each BU & 2 end cabs train

·      Wheel-mounted brake disc 

·      All 3-phase IGBT traction equipment under-slung

·      Fully suspended traction motors

·      180 deg rotatable seats in Ex class, Slide forward seats in Eco class

·      State of the art pantry equipment on-board

·      Moulded FRP interiors with Modular FRP toilets

·      Continuous windows in side walls

·      Fully sealed gangways with external fairing

·      Semi-permanent inter coach coupling

The idea would be that on a 160 km/h section, the average speed should be in the region of 130 km/h, which would compare more than favourably with the following three fastest trains on IR:

Train	Route	Distance (Km)	Time (Min)	Max Speed (Km/h)	Avg. Speed (Km/h)
Gatimaan	Delhi-Gwalior	303	186	160	111
Shatabdi	Delhi-Bhopal	707	510	150	100
Rajdhani	Delhi- Mumbai	1,384	942	140	88

We had recently built a high shed. We nominated a full bay with two lines and a wide middle pathway to accommodate only Train 18 shells and cleared it of everything. A large board boldly declared it as the Train 18 bay. It was obviously largely vacant in the beginning but as the assembled shells starting coming to shape, it was an exciting sight to behold. It was professionally a befitting line. If you like it to be more poetical, just the rightfully divine place for parturition for the latest child of ICF. I found my frequent visits to meet the smiling members of team there as the high point of my typical day at ICF.

Many options were under consideration for the interiors of the train just as you would when you did the interior of an office or a home. I was always a bit wary of meeting the main interior consultants, particularly a French lady, who in one of the initial meetings had declared that I had no sense of a train interior. For examples, the gradual change of the hue and shade in the Eco class seats; I found it rather bizarre but she had the last word and you would find it in the train today. After the train was built, I checked with the senior most lady officer of ICF, Usha Venugopal Principal Financial Advisor, and she agreed with me. The milk, however, was spilt. Another aspect: the slide instead of recline arrangement on seats. We all felt that it should have afforded more recline comfort but apparently the consultant insisted on this European design; to that extent she was right as I also recalled that seats in Europe used to be of this type. I hope the decision would come for review and ICF would decide afresh based on feedback of passengers. Nevertheless, I attended many meetings and watched the progress with interest, even as I was barred from too much interference. The lady would present many models and I would find some need for change in all of them; she would explain patiently but her mind’s eye would say, like the king in Henry V, “your mind is not worth sun burning’’ or like Menenius in Coriolanus, “More of your conversation would infect my brain”. Involved I might have been but it was always the acumen of leader of men and women alike, our man Srinivas to keep good humour and even ensure good progress. The broad framework of the interiors looked something like this on the drawing board:

Models of interior concepts

Things were not looking as bad as they would after passage of some months. There were days of excitement and smug satisfaction and there were days of grave disappointments as finishing touches to designs were in hand, manufacture of shell was in full swing and supply of newly developed sub-assemblies was in various stages. Many dedicated teams of ICF were busy conducting tests at manufacturers’ premises. Dilip Kumar, the DyCME/Design, with help from Amitabh Singhal, DyCEE/Design, would present a redone PERT chart practically every week. Some laggards were fast and some cheetahs were slow. But we had no idea that these colourful charts were going to be just that: colourful charts with all the truth hidden behind colours. The reality would not be so comfortable. In the period Feb-May 2018, all the meetings, except those with some hopelessly slow suppliers, were mostly decision-oriented; Lot of tea and samosas, not much fireworks and we thought Dilip was rocking.

Train 18 progress from Go Ahead (April 17) to Proposed Flag Off (August 18)

Everyone was eager and anxious to how the train would look like, Rahi,

Kar na der aur hashr barpa karne mein 
meri nazar tere  deedar  ko  tarasati hai

(Bring the judgement day soon, I am dying to get a peek at you)

Furnishing in the first shell was far from starting and certain major deliveries of propulsion and allied equipment were likely to arrive only In August. Start of commissioning in July, a must for August turn out, was clearly impossible. Mr. Ford’s wisecrack be damned! Looked like we were going to be not a minute but several months too late.

Will the cultural and systemic changes brought about at ICF sustain with change of leadership at various levels? Will ICF go on with continual or further improvements? If I really did put some good systems in place, how would I ensure continuity?  Looking back, I can remember that this was a natural dilemma but honestly, this was a question that did not bother me that much. We in government perhaps do not think about it that much. It was only when I got invited to a couple of IIMs (Indian Institute of Management) that I found it difficult to brush the question aside with typical clichés about the resilience of railwaymen, universal indispensability and inherent strengths of survival in IR’s organizations. I realized that this was a natural dilemma faced by anyone in a leadership role. I had to think about sustainability of whatever good was done at ICF, and not just sustainability but continual improvements. 

Organizational culture would cover a set of values, beliefs, norms and practices in vogue in it. It defines an organization as something it is and not merely through something it possesses; it is the way things are done in an organization. It is in layers, and the first one you encounter is observable behaviour and the quality of results and output. Secondly, one can determine the prevailing values by observing the first layer and thirdly, the underlying assumptions in the organization which are usually not talked about in a system; a strong well-defined culture has no such assumptions but it is rather rare. Misalignment of these layers leads to employee dissatisfaction. 

Let us examine ICF in this respect. Like any other government organization, it had (and indeed has even today) many open secrets. Assumptions, like, a rigid hierarchical behaviour in interaction and decision-making; window-dressing a case to suit what the boss desired as an input in decision-making; stifling sensitivity towards archaic protocol in dealing with employees and an overpowering arrogation to themselves with misplaced entitlements by a part of leadership; make-believe aloofness from external agencies, like industry and vendors; fear of departmental Vigilance wing, mistrust in leadership with simulated subservience; fake sense of propriety, honesty and integrity whereas everyone knew that it was more for preaching and not for practice. 

It is not enough to be honest in your dealings but to be seen to be one, both in respect of day to day corrupt practices and professional integrity. You need not wear your honesty on your sleeve and go for some misplaced holier-than-thou mission; honesty at times is also a matter of personal choice. But a message must go down that honesty at work is desirable and that lack of integrity and probity cannot be excused. We made some inroads by cracking down on malpractices at lower levels. Certain vigils were made and anonymous whistle blowing was encouraged. Through such exercises, we managed to identify some staff members who were caught red-handed or were clearly proved to be corrupt, and punish them, mostly with dismissal. 

Let me quote an instance when we approached the issue in a novel manner. It is the norm in all railway offices that around Diwali, and to some extent around the new year, representative of suppliers and contractors move around the offices freely with large bags carrying goodies like dry fruits, sweets and even liquor bottles and expensive gifts, distributing them to officers as a routine. What an unprofessional image does it present of an office? I remember, when I was in Germany, we had to employ a great deal of persuasive skills and logistics merely to hand over some inexpensive bottles of wine to some Deutsche Bahn, the German Railways, personnel on the 1st of January; the recipients were very uncomfortable accepting them. 

To improve our image, this Diwali practice had to stop and I arranged to put up standees outside all the ICF offices with the following colourful legend:

“Dear visitor, If you have brought some dry fruits, sweets or other gifts, kindly deposit the same at the reception and we would be happy to send them to Karuna, our school for the special children.”

During my first Diwali in ICF, my attenders were even engaged to nab the defaulters. They  were brought to my room and it was fun quizzing them as they stood in my room, totally flabbergasted.

And what about professional honesty? Professional dishonesty is a bigger killer. A culture of calling a spade a spade and eschewing any window-dressing to justify a pre-determined end is detrimental to building a sound cultural ethos. All decision-making in railways, or at least most of it except the direct day to day operational activities, progresses in files. Great emphasis is placed on files and the way they are put up by many senior officers but unfortunately in a babudom mode; there are other who condemn it as agonizingly bureaucratic. I never bothered about the correctitude of file itself; the content was important and as I said earlier, this system of file movement could be used gainfully. Since everyone was encouraged to record contra views honestly, there was no pressure to commit to anything which, in one’s judgement, was not in the interest of the organization. At the same time, it was made clear that delay or hold up in important cases was inexcusable and the person delaying it was liable to be shamed. 

Mariana says, “No legacy is so rich as honesty” in Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ in some other sense but forgetting the complicated puns and metaphors here, please see how the literal meaning itself is extremely powerful for an organization. Our attempt was to pull at least a loose code of honesty from total oblivion to the forefront in the legacy we were building at ICF.

We also tried to encourage dissent. Quite often, new members show rebellious tendencies. It should not be curbed but listened to. Many times a rebel heard is a rebel won over. An added benefit was that you might also end up doing some course correction based on someone’s rebellious outburst.

The big picture is important for silos to be broken. Since this was not a big problem area, it was easy to align all the team members towards the organizational goals. A formal process was also started. A cross-functional transformational team of officers was constituted to meet and suggest fundamental changes to ease processes and remove unnecessary detentions in work. After some months of sparring, eventually, they started coming up with many ideas and many of these were actually applied or at least taken up further strongly.

Will the transformation stick? I think changes stay put when, with a smooth but gradual transition, all employees begin to identify with the way things are done in the organization. Since we regularly communicated with employees to emphasize how new approaches, behaviours and attitudes helped improve performance, it started forming a part of the value system. To that extent, I am sure the transformation would stick. On the other hand, continued commitment of the combined leadership to take the momentum forward is also important. Will the next line of top managers embrace and personify the changes? That is and would remain an imponderable. I do, however, have great confidence in the resilience of team ICF to not only sustain many aspects of these cultural changes but to even take them to positive refinement.

What more could we do? As long as the leadership is not susceptible to any blackmail, there is no end to what you can do to win over your staff! They are the ones who would sustain the transformation and help catapult it from one rung to the next higher one. 

GMs of IR are allotted a hefty sum for entertainment. I do not know what the protocol for spending this money is; I depended on the secretariat to handle it. But it is certainly not meant for the GM to get together crony officers and party. Railway officers partying? A bit of an oxymoron. In any case unless you can define a gathering of railway officers with spouses, with an unwritten code of separate seating for sahibs and madams; if you tried to break this segregation too much, fellow officers and their spouses would look askance at you. Some booze and even wine now-a-days. Occasionally, some insipid and vapid party games which would challenge your sensibilities and shut down your mind. Some underlings singing at a stage who would soon make way for some sahibs and memsahibs to inflict the assemblage with some extra-euphonic and para-cacophonic singing. And, for sure, a dance floor buzzing with sahibs dancing as couples and memsahibs dancing in triplets, or even quartets, reproducing some hilarious moves like the pelvic thrusts gone south-west, hop, skip and jump, cat walk routine with hands thrown in air for some obscure reason and the supreme steps of the man born with two left feet. Never to say no to a drink, I would confine myself to the more earthily cerebral corners where choicest of bawdy jokes emanated from the whisky glasses.

Using my entertainment funds for such parties? Not my cup of tea, not by a mile. Why not use this fund, to the extent permissible, for better bonding with the entire team of ICF, not only senior officers but junior officers, supervisors, office staff, technicians and equivalent categories from staff. I discussed the matter with Babu, and he seconded it as a good move which would promote team spirit. We organised more than a dozen such tea parties and dinners in GM’s residence. It was a novel experience for all the participants; it was, for sure, not possible to get all of ICF to roll up because of the sheer numbers but we did cover large representative groups. For most of the participants, the GM’s residence, a palatial villa quite in line with the norm on IR, was like an impenetrable fortress; they were initially quite bemused to be invited there but once they came in, we made sure that they felt at home. The goings on in the assemblies were facilitated and conducted by some buoyant and energetic junior officers in a very friendly and informal fashion; one of the officers who was in regular demand was Senior Personnel Officer John. He could make the participants get up and speak or even sing, perhaps for the first time in front of a large gathering. I cherish the experience intensely and it did the team ICF incalculable good.

Interaction parties with staff in GM’s bungalow

I was awarded the certificate of excellence for transformational initiatives at ICF by the Minister of Railways in April 2018. While many of my colleagues felt that it was a befitting recognition of the humongous work done at ICF, there were others who attributed it to my closeness to the CRB.

These changes were closely linked, whether intentionally or not, with making of Train 18. These changes are the why, what and how of my story. Many of these whats and hows are interchangeable, making it difficult to say whether the hows led to the whats or vice versa. People ask me, as in case of our HR initiatives, whether these transformational changes helped in making Train 18. I have the same reply that we would have made these changes, Train 18 or no Train 18 and if they helped in making Train 18, we are happy about it.

With more time at hand to think, I must revisit and ponder as to what I did and, of course, mostly what I did not do. No one can look back and say that he did everything right. I can also, obviously, not take a trip back in a time machine and start following exactly the same path that I had traversed. But I do find that there would not be too many things that I would do differently. To that extent, I can only say that it was a job well done and if fruits are picked for long, very good, and if they are not, that is how was to be. 

Debating the issue of sustainability of positive changes in a large organization is not possible for someone like me who is no management guru. Whether the changes were all positive would also be contested by many. When you're deep and committed to improvements on daily basis, it is hard to cognize fully as to what and when would add up to something bigger and better. Immersed that you are in leading the implementation and consummation, you are robbed of the ability to perceive in the big picture. You can only be innocently optimistic that the smallest things you did would have a mighty impact.

I would arrogate to myself the thoughts of Portia in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice that a good deed does shine long and far in this indecorous world,

"How far that little candle throws his beams!"

I have touched upon some design aspects earlier. But I omitted to talk about the heart, or rather the hearts, of our design effort. Magical work has been done by an Indian company based in Hyderabad in the field of 3-phase propulsion system. This company has always believed in strong R&D work and has deployed a large group of very competent engineers for years to develop their products in the train propulsion and allied areas. Their products have proved to be more effective and reliable as compared to the systems offered by established multi-nationals in the country; the price of the propulsion system for locomotives and self-propelled vehicles has also come down over the years thanks to their presence. Fortunately, they had bagged the order for the propulsion system, including traction motors (TMs), and its complicated controls and that too through an open bidding process. 

They had, time and again, delivered new products in a fraction of time period demanded by the competition. Mainly based on their credentials, we had categorized propulsion system and controls as one area where we were almost there. The system had to pack enough power under-board the train platform to achieve high levels of acceleration that we had specified. In addition, the responsibility of integrating many allied systems like the state of the art brakes, doors, air-conditioning etc. rested with them. They indeed proved to be equal to the task; all the deliverables, except of course the famous transformers, were in place and incessant interactions with our design team had ensured a largely trouble-free progress. We at ICF had gone out of the way to encourage and support them to help ourselves towards our goals, not only for Train 18 but so many other products, including the two little sisters of Train 18. I had seen the extraordinary merit in this company long back and had always egged them on to greater feats; many would tell you that I must have had some vested interest in doing so. Yes, indeed! My vested interest was to have an Indian company (or Indian companies) challenge themselves and bring to us world class product from their very own stable. 

I had arrived at ICF with this reputation of being a ‘friend’ of this company but why should that have deterred me as far as my mind was clearly devoid of any venal or dishonest intentions? I derived strength from my belief that strong reasons must make strong actions, a simple cerebration propounded by the bard centuries ago;  Remember what Hotspur in Shakespeare’s Henry IV says, “O, the blood more stirs to rouse a lion than to start a hare!” I had seen the sleeping lion in this company in early 2000s when they were known merely as a manufacturer of electronic speed indicators. If fear of petty and shallow doubters and rumour-mongers prevented me from doing the right thing, it would be a shame. Thankfully, I never fell prey to the machinations and judgements of the frivolous, the feather-brained and the flippant. Today our country is much more the richer due to their continuous successes. You can actually keep a good thing down in government, unfortunately. But fortunately, simply because of the fascinating journey of this company in the last fifteen years of so, there are many well-meaning enlightened railway officers who would swear by their stupendous capability. Suffice it to say that we had reposed great faith in this company and there we were, poised to shine in the reflected glory of their marvellous efforts in making of Train 18. Barring the transformers from France, all other development and deliveries were more or less as per schedule.

Development of motorized bogies with fully suspended TMs fit for 180/160 km/h operation was a big challenge. The bogie is the key to safety, ride behaviour and speed capability of a rolling stock. The term is used interchangeably by people for a railway coach; the bogie, however, is actually the carrier of the coach body, hardly noticeable by an average traveller. It is the heart of a rolling stock and its drive system, its guidance mechanism and its suspension arrangement; it is the truck with a framework/chassis that supports the vehicle body and since it carries the wheels, the traction and braking is transferred from the latter to the train through its structure, apparatus and components. We had engaged a consultant as for the first time on IR, we had to design a new bogie from scratch. Our project schedule for bogies involved multiple agencies apart from the consultants as we had decided to source most of the components in India, either through ICF’s bogie shop or through trade, with very limited imports. 

After the main concept and parts/sub-parts, developed and finalized jointly by the consultants, ICF and associated vendors, design validation on basic data, detailed design and final validation through a long interactive process was take up. Dynamic analysis had finally showed stable behaviour even above 180 km/h speeds. The bogie concept, with fully-suspended motors, brake disc mounted on the wheel instead of the axle as in LHB bogies, compact brake callipers, air springs in secondary location, other suspension elements and dampers etc. are best shown a 3-D  this model. RDSO was also involved in the said simulations and FEM works as they were the ones who would test the safety and running performance of the train and it depended heavily on the way the bogie would behave.

FEM analysis of the bogie frame and assembled bogie concept

Development of the bogie frame and crucial parts like dampers, springs, bearings, metal-bonded rubber elements, air springs, various casting and forging items, that is more than fifty individual parts, which was carried out mainly through the industry, was an elaborate set of activities; it needed regular deployment of ICF teams to the firms to involve first had in the development process. 

Manufacture of bogie frames was assigned to a firm in Kanpur, which had time and again done pioneering work in manufacture of indigenous version of imported bogies as well as tweaked design of existing fabricated bogies. The contract of this firm called for supply of the bogie frames integrated with the cast and forged parts. We had asked them to source the cast and forged parts from firms we had also ordered on for our own manufacture of Train 18 bogies in future. These casting and forging firms, particularly the former were repeatedly defaulting on supply dates leading to the bogie supplier defaulting too. The bogie supplier, however, was always on our chase hit list and even I used to talk to him frequently to pull out all the stops working more than three shifts and whatever, but deliver, deliver, deliver. Their MD, a man nearing seventy, is an exceptional mechanical mind who runs his company primarily on his own strength. Whether such concentrated expertise and control is good for business or not is not the issue; I merely want the readers to know the kind of person I was dealing with. He would always say, “Sir, the effort we have put for this project is our best. We have worked day and night to perfect the quality first and later the speed. ICF, and more than that you, are very important for us but please do not run with the hare and hunt with the hound. You tied our hands with this casting manufacturer and now please do not ask me to defend his delays as mine”. Well, to a large extent he was right but I had to keep telling him to sink his teeth into Train 18 only as he was the principal supplier.  

Another design aspect which was of no less importance was the Brake system. We needed a failsafe, super efficient and reliable braking system of current technology to complement our concept of fast acceleration and enable smooth but matching deceleration. The brake system, fortunately, is always insulated from any misplaced idea of ToT. Your drawings, specifications, say in interpretation are the summary of the IPR here, the heart would always belong to the manufacturer; this is the way it works the world over and this is the way it would work on Train 18. The brake system, explained simply would be as under:

Simple representation of Brake system

The problem was that the world over, the rolling stock brake system market had always been ruled by three major companies, one German, one French and one American. With the acquisition of the second by the third, we effectively had only two competent players left in the field. The main team members were clear that brake system was not a field to start experimenting; our strategy would be to hard sell the promise of the project such that, even if we imported the first few train sets of brake equipment at the ruling price, which certainly was hefty one, indigenization in future would be kept on horizon to bring the price down as both these companies had a sizeable presence in India. By the way, I had declared to many pretender companies and also some pipe-dreamers on IR that if someone did nurture a dream to design and build our own brake system, let the effort go in developing a brake system for LHB coaches and not Train 18; the former was, unfortunately, saddled for decades with an unnecessarily high-priced system without matching benefits.

The experience of dealing with this German Brake company was very satisfying. I had a long standing professional relationship with the MD of the Indian arm of this company but our discussions after early 2017 were always focused on their delivery schedule. In spite of many odds and rather unreasonable demands from us, he would try his best, with some protestations but never a final demur, and more often than not, deliver what looked rather hopeless. I would always berate him for their dependence on their German counterpart for design or software corrections and the stranglehold the latter had even on their day to day operations; “Aap ko chheenkne ke liye bhi Germany phone ghumana parta hai. (even for sneezing, you have to call Germany to seek permission)”, I would say. “Theek hai, par hamare jaisi chheenk bhi aapko kahin aur nahin milegi (Perhaps, but you will not get a sneeze like ours from anyone else)”, he once retorted when pushed to the wall in one of the concluding design meetings. Well, that we would gladly evaluate when the other firm also sneezes, hopefully for the third or fourth Train 18 rake.

My battle with this MD gentleman continued and at the end of our every famously unpalatable tête-à-tête, he would promise something more than what he was hitherto committed to, which he would mostly live up to it as well. But his tenor and tune gave something away which, if he were less finance-savvy and not so much of corporate go-getter, but more poetic, would be like the predicament of Ghalib:

Tangi-e-dil ka gila kya ye wo kafir dil hai 

ki  agar tang na hota  to  pareshan  hota

(Why complain of the distress of this heathen heart; if it were not distressed, it would be agitated.)

Finally, things were falling into place. Earlier I had got worried when we learnt that the first bogie would be assembled in ICF only in by August end; it needed bogie frames, wheel and axle assembly with gear drive and brake disc, brake system components, rubber parts, springs, dampers etc. to be with us for assembly. While other parts were either delivered or despatched already, absence of the bogie frames and rubber parts was critical. In my previous experience with new locomotives, I had always found that placing of car body on the bogie for the first time was a nightmare as some issue or the other, mostly some infringement, always cropped up. “When are you lowering your coach on bogies for the first time? That’s day you may encounter your worst fears”, I would tell Srinivas and others on shop floor. They would all look at me as if I was from another planet, their silence saying, “Why would there be an issue? Everything would be fitted after pre-checks, after all”. I almost wanted some issue to crop up to tell off these cocksure guys! But much before the end of August we had received everything for the first two bogies, that is, for the first coach.

One day when I was at the shop floor, Srinivas told me, without any ceremony, that the first coach had been lowered successfully and the entire process was absolutely uneventful. Really! I checked twice to confirm and rushed to see the coach and there it was, standing majestically on its own motorized bogies. Srinivas and the team stood there smiling. I smiled too, muttering under my breath that they had got lucky and moved on. I did not show it then but later I told each member of the team how surprised and happy I was in being proved wrong. And indeed I was; after all I was old fashioned, or rather outdated, in familiarity with advanced design tools. It was a big day for Train 18. There it was, the first ever indigenous 180 km/h bogie, assembled and ready for testing:

Assembled bogie of Train 18, assembled without a hitch

I felt like calling our friend, the French lady of the transformer fame and repeating to her the exhortations of the poet Sahar: 

Ghata hai, bagh hai, mai hai, subu hai, jam hai saqi,

Ab  is  ke baad  jo  kuchh  hai  tera  kaam  hai  saqi

(On this cloudy day in this garden, we have wine, we have goblets, we have the decanter. After all this all we need is the consummation from you.)

(to be continued...)