An Indecisive Indian

   All the Train 18 shells were ready in the nominated bay, undergoing furnishing and installation of equipment. The sequence of manufacture of shells from the start on the underframe jig to lowering of the car body on bogies had been proven and most of the shells were already on bogies by September 18. The sequence, an archetypal of working in ICF, although carried out by Sri Shashi Bhushan, Chief Workshop Engineer/Shell, Sri Ravichandran, Production Engineer/Shell , and   their team certainly more methodically, has been captured pictorially here:   I was always quizzed by the media about the facilities that we were going to provide for the differently-abled passengers. What we do have on trains today is an apology; doing and undoing a job by installing something for namesake without proper space for movement of wheel chair and a purposefully designed toilet. Talk to some of differently-abled passe...

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. 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 memsahibs; 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...

I have been saying many things about Transfer of Technology (ToT). Lest it be taken as a ball of wax condemnation of the concept, I must put my criticism in the right perspective. I am not asinine enough to condemn ToT as a disabling vehicle; we have indeed learnt a lot through the ToTs we have gone through on IR. My take is simple. In areas where the gap between the requirement and our expertise and capability is large, there is no alternative but to contract an arrangement for acquiring technology; there can be many models but the underlying idea should be meaningful learning not only for doing a proficient job but also for imbibing enough of the design and manufacturing philosophy to equip ourselves for future expansion of the concepts in new designs. On the other hand, in areas where this gap is not so large, we have to challenge ourselves without the need to engage a ToT provider. We have to ask if a ToT is indeed necessary or we can take up the project on our own, knowing that t...

The concept of providing all the equipment, not only for traction and braking but also for air-conditioning, ventilation and lighting, and indeed everything else, below the floor was working out. As Train18 neared completion, we could see that this would revolutionize the way we laid out equipment and sub-assemblies in our rolling stocks. In any case, we were certain that we had hit upon the right concept and that we must transfer it to other rolling stocks as far as possible. Back in early 2017, even as the Train 18 work had picked up speed, both Sri Srinivas, Chief Design Engineer/M and Sri Vavre, the then Chief Design Engineer/E approached me with a grandiose plan to equip all self-propelled trains with Train 18 clones for bogies and propulsion. Although the Train 18 project itself was in infancy, they were already brimming with confidence about the impact it would crate and change the way we designed rolling stock. It was music to my ears as it had been at the back of my mind too...