My Maiden Trip on Vande Bharat: A Homecoming on Rails

 

It is 22^nd November 2025 today, and it has now been more than seven years since the prototype Train 18, now christened Vande Bharat, rolled out of the Integral Coach Factory gates for the very first time. The thrill, pride, and sheer magic woven by the ICF core team, whom I was fortunate enough to lead, have been recounted by me and others many times: in talks, in print, and in quiet conversations when memory lent colour and verve to bare facts.

Yet, strangely, despite living and breathing that project for years, I had never travelled on it as a passenger. Except for the test runs of 2018, I had only experienced the train from the vantage of its maker, not its customer. Somewhere deep inside, I always knew that my real journey with Vande Bharat would happen silently, unannounced, without ceremony or spotlight, just me melting anonymously into its rhythm.

I had resolved that this ride would happen organically and not as a planned exercise. Life, as always, had other ideas. My business and other travels typically take me frequently to Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, even Indore, Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Thiruvananthapuram, but none of these are ideal train journeys from my city, Lucknow. Someday, perhaps, the much-awaited Sleeper version of Vande Bharat will make such travel rational and comfortable, but for now, that remains a train more in hype than reality. Even Delhi feels too long for a day journey at the current permissible running speed of 130 kmph, even though the train is capable of 160. And yes, though I should enjoy the privilege of free Executive Class rail travel with my wife, I’ve invariably chosen the skies for convenience over the rails I spent a lifetime on.

This time, however, fate slipped in quietly. I needed to travel to Prayagraj, and for once, the best option wasn’t a flight or a car, but Vande Bharat. So, on 20th November, I found myself at Charbagh station, waiting, not as its maker, not as a railway executive, not as the former GM, but as a passenger, albeit with my free privilege pass and a quiet curiosity and anticipation.

The station was its usual chorus of chaos and humanity, noisy, alive, unpredictable. Somewhat cleaner than it used to be—presumably a gift of bio-toilets, which IR had to incorporate in trains under the pressure of the Supreme Court and greater stress on cleanliness. And yes, escalators and lifts, things that were a rarity when I hung up my boots in 2018, now stood as silent sentinels of some modernization.

And then there she was. The train. Familiar, but no longer the baby I looked at in 2018.

The exterior looked largely the same as what we built. Maybe a little wavier on the sidewall skins, but still better than most Indian trains. The Executive Class coach was reasonably clean, though marred by an unnecessary red carpet strip that felt like a disguise for what should have been confidently displayed. The seat was more comfortable than the prototype—back-recline replacing the slide-forward mechanism. The toilet was neat and functional, though fittings bore the unmistakable fingerprints of cost-cutting and multi-sourcing, the eternal curse of our procurement system. The ride quality was good, though not perceptibly enhanced from the prototype as has been claimed unnecessarily. The acceleration remains a key USP due to the train’s distributed power system, as it was in the prototype. The interiors were pleasant. The food was hygienic and reasonably palatable.

Occupancy was, frankly, poor—Executive Class hovering below 25%, Chair Car barely at half capacity. We had predicted this long ago: without a sleeper variant, the day-train model was bound to struggle on routes where the extent of clientele would simply not justify the glamour.

But this is not a review. And I do not want this to become a catalogue of what should have, could have, or must still be improved. I keep speaking and writing about that. Anything more would slide dangerously into the realm of presumptuous “See? I told you so.”

No, that is not what this journey was about. Because what truly happened on that journey was more human, more personal, more meaningful.

Barely had the train moved when a quiet murmur spread, and suddenly the onboard Captain, TTEs, Mechanical and Electrical technicians, RPF staff, and catering staff appeared, smiling, respectful, almost reverential. Someone had recognized me, and before I could downplay it, they were thanking me, not as an official, not as an engineer, but as a railwayman who had been part of creating what they now proudly operated. As we posed for photographs, one technician held my hand for a moment longer than formality allows, his eyes shining as he whispered, “Sir, we feel proud running her.”

And that moment—simple, spontaneous, sincere, held more worth than awards, notifications, or applause.

Because railwaymen are a strange tribe. Outwardly, they appear like any other government employee—working leisurely, underappreciated, frequently cynical. But scratch the surface, and something else emerges: a quiet pride rooted not in hierarchy, not in personal gain, but in belonging to something larger than themselves.

Indian Railways (IR) is not just a transport system—it is a thread that has stitched together a nation for more than 170 years. It has carried dreams, migrations, wars, weddings, farewells, reunions, revolutions, ambitions, and memories. It has connected not just cities but destinies.

Ask any Indian, and somewhere in their memory, a train whistles—bringing childhood excitement, a first journey alone, tea in a kulhad (earthen cup) on a misty platform, political debates between strangers, scenery unfolding like cinema, and the calm assurance that rails, unlike life, come with a schedule. We grew up with it, long before we understood it fully.

That is why railwaymen feel ownership, because they do not just run trains. They run stories. Of course, like any large organization, IR has its spectrum. A small group carries the weight with extraordinary dedication and sincerity. A large middle tribe does just enough to keep the wheels moving. And yes, a tiny fraction looks for the easiest path around effort.

But that committed group—the dreamers, the doers, the quietly stubborn workers who refuse to let impossibility win, are like no other I have encountered in my life. Not abroad, not in the Ministry of External Affairs, where I worked as a Railway Advisor in the Embassy of India at Berlin, not in the private sector, with which I am closely involved as a consultant for the last seven years. And when I talk about the IR’s committed group, I think not just of officers on stations, shop floors or meeting rooms. I think of the pointsman signalling trains through sleepless nights, the fitter whose hands carry the scars of stubborn machinery, the trackman who walks miles of track before dawn so others may travel safely, the loco pilot who moves hundreds of tonnes of steel with the precision of a jeweller. These are the men and women who give IR its heartbeat.

Their grit, ingenuity, and emotional investment are unmatched. And that, not rolling stock, not locomotives, not signalling systems, is IR’s greatest asset.

When the photos with the staff unexpectedly appeared in a newspaper, thanks to my friend Deepak Kumar Jha, a senior correspondent of The Pioneer, it felt like a closure of sorts. A circle truly completed. (story referenced in the end)

And as the train gently ran forward, I found myself overwhelmed, not with nostalgia, but with gratitude. Gratitude for having lived a professional life where one could build, not policies, but something that moves, breathes, carries lives. Gratitude for having worked with people who, despite all systemic flaws, still care deeply. Gratitude for having been allowed to leave behind, not a speech, not a report, but a train and one day, when I am no longer here, she will still run.

Some journeys change destinations. Some change the traveller. This one did both. I stepped off that train a passenger, but walked away a little more human.

And long after the last station passes, long after roles and titles blur into the past, one truth remains,  silent, steady, and deeply personal:

Once a railwayman, always a railwayman. Forever.

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Ref.:

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2025/page1/when-the-maker-became-the-rider.html