Train 18/Vande Bharat: a roller coaster ride for the creators!!

 

Circa summer 2013: Although a look at the passenger trains of Indian Railways (IR) had been like a millionth déja vu of ‘more of the same’, the same metallic box with unseemly windows and doors, it all started, in way, when I, with my family arrived at a wayside station in Poland and standing on the other track of our platform was a plain box type unsightly Polish train, perhaps a remnant of Soviet era. "Papa, dekho, India jaisi train" (Papa, look, a train like the Indian trains), exclaimed by my 12-year-old son, looking out of the window of the train we were travelling in. My son was voicing precisely what had bothered me for decades; why do our trains look the same year after year? He had shown his father the mirror.

 

Ek jaise lag rahe haiñ ab sabhī chehre mujhe

hosh kī ye intihā hai yā bahut nashshe meñ huuñ

(intihā: extreme, end. All the faces look alike to me; either a test of my consciousness or I am intoxicated. Poet: Bharat Bhushan Pant)

 

July/August 2016: The bard certainly covers it with Lancelot proclaiming in The Merchant of Venice, “It is a wise father that knows his own child.”, but the father had to wait for two years, request for his posting as General Manager of Integral Coach Factory (ICF). I made this request when my turn came to be promoted as GM, which surprised late A.K.Mital, the then Chairman Railway Board (CRB), as he was regularly flooded by requests for a posting in an open line zone. I soon joined as the GM of ICF. There I was, with many thoughts, emotions, misgivings and optimism but what resounded and reverberated the most was this:

 

Ab falak yuuñ kare sach ye ḳhvāb ho jaa.e

barsoñ kā  merā  shafaq  ab āftāb ho jaa.e

(falak: sky, firmament, shafaq: evening twilight, āftāb: sun. Let the sky make this dream come true and after years of twilight, let the sun shine. Poet: modified from original by me)

 

November 2016 to April 2017: Having inherited a great team of officers and staff at ICF, brimming with chutzpah to do something new but with ennui written all over their faces, ‘doing more of the same’, my job was to lead them and channelize their energy towards designing and manufacturing Train 18. I begged for a sanction of two trains from the chairman, with the conviction that, “someone will kill your vanity tomorrow, better you kill it yourself today” and secured it, in the face of gross negativity and scepticism of others in Railway Board. Back to my team, I had to motivate the team to go far beyond the call of duty; I frequently quoted Lucio in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt” and as Allama Iqbal said, “Girte haiñ shah-savār hī maidaan-e-ja.ng meñ, vo tifl kyā gire jo ghuTno.n ke bal chale” (shah-savār: expert horseman, maidaan-e-ja.ng: field of battle, tifl:child. Only the mounted soldiers fall in the battlefield, what fall would a toddler, who crawls on his knees, take?).

 

April 2017 to October 2018: An incredible journey of 18 months with ICF’s sterling team and brilliant engineers and technicians from the allied industry. Hitches and glitches for sure but great synergy and the train was unveiled on October 2018, following great anticipation and excitement:

 

Itne hijāboñ par to ye aalam hai husn kā

kyā haal ho jo dekh leñ parda uThā ke ham

(It is so pretty from behind many veils, what magic would I see if I lift the veil? Poet: Jigar Moradabadi).

 

October 2018 to March 2019: The train was tested by RDSO and it cleared all the tests and validation exercise with flying colours. It was nothing less than a miracle that ICF had conceived, marshaled and achieved the impossible:  a world class train, made entirely in India, in just 18 months, at a fraction of what it would take both in terms of time and cost, anywhere across the globe. This train caught the imagination of the countrymen because they saw it as a symbol of resurgent and aspirational India; the first time that a rolling stock project of this magnitude was executed from concept to manufacture entirely in India. Train 18/Vande Bharat train, paved the way for a whole new ballgame in rail transportation, not a mere organic continuation of what IR had been used to producing in respect of trains but a courageous, transformational leapfrog into future, a signal that India had arrived on the global scene in Rail sector.

 

Humne ja ke dekh liyā hai, had-e-nazar se aage bhī

rāhguzar hī rāhguzar hai rāhguzar se aage bhī

 

(had-e-nazar: limit of sight, rahguzar: path, thoroughfare. I have gone and seen what lies beyond the horizon, paths and paths are laid out beyond your road. Poet: modified from original by me)

 

March 2019 to circa summer of 2021: Shortly after the train was launched by the PM himself, the venal machinations of the unspeakable emerged out of the blue. The train is vilified but since it was working flawlessly, the mud did not stick, except in some unscrupulous media reports. The corrupt and the crooked did not stop, soon it was the turn of the entire team to be victimized through bogus Vigilance cases. I grandiosely, and foolishly thought, “Love me or hate me, both are in my favor, if you love me, I’ll always be in your heart, if you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.” (a quote not of Shakespeare but borrowed from, Fakespeare, which, at times, is as affective, God knows who said this, though). The PM praises the ICF engineers in public, the Board puts a picture of Train 18 in all its publicity materials but this unspeakable bunch goes on schemingrelentlessly, out to destroy the team which built Train 18. I, now retired, had started writing about the train and the team, eschewing a reference to the negativity, lest this vile bunch came even harder on those magnificent officers who were still in service, suffering the ignominy of replying to inane questions on Train 18 from insipid officers who know nothing about trains.

 

Ham kahāñ ke daanā the kis hunar meñ yaktā the

be-sabab huā Ghālib dushman āsmāñ apnā

(daanā: knowledgeable, yaktā: skillful. When was I wise and learned in any way, when did I have any unique skill? For no reason, Ghālib, heaven has become so hostile to me. Poet: Ghālib)

 

So, there I was, unhappy but not worried, keeping largely silent, as we had done nothing wrong but the officers in service were paying a price for sticking their necks out and doing something meaningful, unlike a whole bunch of government executives who keep busy serving their own ends and merely boiling the ocean:

 

Jāntā huuñ savāb-e-tā.at-o-zohd

par tabī.at idhar nahīñ aatī

Hai kuchh aisī hī baat jo chup huuñ

varna kyā baat kar nahīñ aatī

(savab-e-ta’at-zohad: blessings through obeisance and devotion, tabiyat: temperament. I know the virtues of devotion and obeisance, but neither does excite my temperament. There is something which keeps me in peace through silence. Otherwise, do you think I know not how to speak? Poet: Ghālib)

 

Yet, downplaying the negativity except for a brief mention in the end, my writing was complete and the book, “My Train 18 Story”, was released to a good reception by the countrymen:

 

My Train 18 Story: Sudhanshu Mani  Amazon   https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/8194897432/ref=cxskuctr_share?smid=A3M8O4N33XL773

 

August 2021 onwards: The two Vande Bharat trains continued in trouble-free service and then came the announcements by the PM on 15^th August 21 that 75 such trains would ply across the country in 75 weeks. A new minister had taken charge. Vibes had become very positive, dramatically. The budget sprang another surprise by the Finance Minister that 400 Vande Bharat trains would be manufactured in the next three years.

 

Aaj ham se pūchhiye kaisā kamāl ho gayā

Hijr ke khauf meñ rahe aur visaal ho gayā

(kamāl: wonderful unbelievable happening, Hijr: separation, khauf: fear, visaal: union. Ask me what a miracle took place today, there I was in fear of separation and it turned into union. Poet: Hilāl Faridi)

 

Jo ruke to koh-e-girāñ the ham jo chale to jaañ se guzar ga.e

rah-e-yār ham ne qadam tujhe yādgār banā diyā

(koh-e-girāñ: huge mountain, rah-e-yār: path of lover, qadam: step, yādgār: memorial. When I was standstill, I was like a huge mountain but when I moved, it was so fast that I gave up my life. Poet: Faiz)

 

Meanwhile, Central Vigilance Commission threw away the case concocted by the said bunch of wicked fellows and even admonished them for the witch-hunt. I was obviously very happy but as some of the officers had already suffered progression in their careers, it rankled. As for these wicked people  who masterminded these machinations, let them struggle with their conscience, given, of course, that if they have any.

 

Nevertheless, we are but insignificant mortals and there is no use complaining. The bard covered it in Henry VIII, when Griffith observes that, “Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water.” We even have Antony saying in the famous “Friends, Romans, lend me your ears” speech in front of Caesar’s corpse in Julius Caesar that while we recall well anything done to harm us, we forget quickly the good others do.

 

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interrèd with their bones…”

 

We went through all this many times over. The country knows that the team was hounded through the age-old poisonous instrument of that special Indian species of scoundrels, “give a dog a bad name and hang him”, and also, thankfully, that it is a thing of the past, albeit after painful nightmare for us. Shining success of the train and the team which built it, and the pride thereof, had been restored, after it was turned into a saga of vilification of the train and witch-hunt of the team members. Not every one of the team has been revived but be that as it may, it was time to look at the future dispassionately.

 

The common reaction in railway and industrial circles was that the government had overreached to an impossibility because, while not even one train was made after the success of the first two in 2018-19, the financial performance of IR was so poor that such a massive investment in passenger trains, which are largely losing propositions, seemed bizarre. At that stage, I had written in this space and newspapers and spoken on social media that the announcement had shown the intent of the government and the question should be how, and not whether, this can be achieved, given that Vande Bharat trains had proved to be remunerative, proposing my recipe and, coincidentally, something similar is in pipeline.

 

Sitāroñ se aage jahāñ aur bhī haiñ

abhī ishq ke imtihāñ aur bhī haiñ

(There is world beyond the stars and many inquests of love that I still have to go through. Poet: Allama Iqbal)

 

Now: We did build a great train but was it a world-class? Not quite. We wanted to but we were running against time as we were trying to do something in 18 months against the word-wide norm of 36 to 42 months. The last year has been the time to look at it very closely. New specification? Let us get this bizarre creation out of the way. This so-called new specification was nothing but an exercise driven by pure jealousy, venal mindset and unadulterated insipidity; it attempts to enhance the acceleration of a train which was at the optimum already or improve the ride index of a train which is acknowledged to have a ride-comfort far superior to existing coaches. The die was already cast, or perhaps the goose was cooked, as these misplaced modifications would neither cut down travel time nor improve perceptible passenger experience. One can only hope that these hair-brained modifications do not come in way of proliferation of the trains due to some unnecessary complication arising out of them, given that these changes have already set back the project by three years.

 

I presented my recipe for genuine upgrade of the train in the new version, third rake onwards in my blog earlier:

 

http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2022/01/new-train-18vande-bharat-exp-must-excel.html 

We wait with hope. Genuinely, in spite of everything. Helena in the bard’s All’s Well That End Well, speaks this aphorism, rhetorically,

 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.

 

Meanwhile, the train continues to be in news and the likely date of turn out of the third rake, under manufacture at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, was likely to cause delay in turn-out of the much-awaited third rake of the train. Because of non-availability of wheels, or whatever, a delay of some months is immaterial as we have waited for nearly four years. What is important are these recent announcements when the minister visited ICF, which, summarized are:

 

1)   The first prototype is expected to roll out in the first week of August to be followed by the second prototype in the second week of August. After the rolling out of the trains, prototypes would be put on trial for 45 days before launching the commercial service.     

2)   The production capacity Vande Bharat rakes at ICF is being enhanced from four to six rakes per month to meet the target of 75 Vande Bharat trains in 75 weeks (and never mind that this manufacturing rate of four per month is merely on paper, nowhere near being established) and, inter alia,    

3)   IR has finalized the plan of setting up depots for maintenance at nearly 15 stations on the possible 28 routes of Shatabdis and other intercity trains, viz., Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Howrah, Patna, Pune, Guwahati, Tirupati, Bilaspur, Bhopal and Chennai etc.

 

So, friends, is ICF, which has not turned out a single rake for more than three years really geared up to make six rakes a month, or is it just a hype or worse, it may just about do it with a severe deterioration in quality?

 

Can we really run these trains in large numbers all over the country without a robust plan for maintenance and allied training or will we just push these rakes on unprepared railway zones and witness frequent cancellations and allied disruptions thereof due to maintenance downtime and reduced reliability?

 

In this mad rush to meet, or at least reach close to, the lofty timeline given by the PM, other important issue like development of a Sleeper to replace Rajdhanis and Aluminium-bodied versions be lost?

 

Will the new version of Vande Bharat excel the first two or be a weaker ‘more of the same’ as them?

 

We will go our sluggish or circumspect way or head on rashly and thoughtlessly at this great speed, but to me the former two would be preferable as, in spite of my incorrigible optimism, the pitfalls in the last course are too stark to ignore.

 

Will IR and ICF present to me, say, nine months from now, an occasion to say, “I told you so” ? Or, if I am proved wrong, I would be humbled to scream “Mea Culpa” that I was a cynic, but at the same time, affording me some happiness that such an unthinkable thrust towards more and more of our creation has become successful. Time will tell but in any case, I remember the poet Arif:

 

Ek charāġh aur ek kitāb aur ek ummīd asāsa

us ke ba.ad to jo kuchh hai vo sab afsāna hai

(asāsa: wealth, property, goods. A lamp, a book and a hope are my property and everything after that is just a story.)