Thank You Railways!!

Allahabad junction, June 15, 1994…….. When I returned after succeeding in filling a bottle of water from the over crowded cold water tap few meters away from my train, the train was not there! Before I realised, my train (3417) had left Allahabad Railway station for Mumbai, then Bombay. It had on board all my original certificates and testimonials, in a suitcase and a bag which were un-locked and un-chained. I was a waitlist passenger in sleeper class- slept when a birth got vacant and did not realise that the train had already finished its scheduled stoppage. It was around 11am, June 15, 1994 exactly 17-years ago. I was left with only some cash and my train ticket in my pocket, a bottle of water and a towel around my neck…everything else was en-route to Bombay!!

I rushed to the Station Superintendent (SS) room and requested help! The SS told though it is late but they would try….they tried and tried and tried…..and traced my luggage after two hours of consistent calling when the train had traveled about 100km from Allahabad Junction to Tikaria Station. Good! The officers smiled, “we have found your luggage and have arranged the Station Master of Tikaria to take its possession”. I was given a slip with SS stamp(which I have still kept with me) requesting Station master Tikaria “Sri Rajeet Ranjan Sinha, who missed his luggage on 3417 is going with this slip, please handover his luggage”.

Couple of hours later I boarded Bombay Mail which did not have a halt at Tikaria but to a station 7-km away. I had the option of waiting for a connecting passenger train or taking a local village bus, I got the bus first and reached Tikaria around 9pm. There was a new station master(SM) on duty then and he told me that for safety reasons they had sent my luggage to another station, Markandi. He said he would arrange the same by to come to Tikaria by the midnight passenger train. He also offered me to have dinner with him and then advised me to take rest on seats at the platform. There was no electricity at the station and I slept few feet away from the tracks on the seats at the platform.

Come midnight, my train was to reach, the SM woke me up and took lantern in his one hand and we walked to the guard’s compartment. The guard handed over my luggage to me and the station master helped me by carrying one bag in his hand to the middle of the packed train where he could fit me in with my luggage. The train was over stopped there to help me.

I do not remember any officers’ name today, so THANK YOU RAILWAYS!! Thank You!!