An Indecisive Indian

  One would expect that a firm plan for the Indian Railways’ (IR’s) rolling stock (coaches, wagons and locomotives) to be manufactured and procured over the next decade, and a lucid picture of how our trains should look like, say in 2035, is an important aspect of IR’s overall planning. It is certainly not something so complicated or orphic that a member of the Railway Board, the Member (TRS), has to be sacked to make a meaningful headway on the subject. Strange though it may sound, that is what happened recently in a meeting taken by the Minister of Railways on the subject; apparently the gentleman in question came totally unprepared and was shown the door. I do not know the gory details but it certainly weighed me down, and amused me, both at once. So, here I am, trying to unravel something which has unnecessarily become ‘rocket science’? The exercise would usually need going thought the mammoth data of passenger preferences and patronization, which is easily available from IRC...