MAKING RAILWAY RESERVATIONS THEN AND NOW 75
Camping as i was at Regina in Canada then , I had my own fears while making Railway Reservation from Chennai to Tirunelveli for my return to Agasthiarpatty . Considering that this was for a train travel which was scheduled almost 13000 KMS away for a journey in a different country with a different time zone and currency , i had my reservations about being able to do this successfully online , but as it turned out this was a fairly easy job . Being a user of the IRCTC APP made the whole excercise simple and it took hardly 10 minutes to get this done . Thanks to The Indian Railways and special thanks to the IRCTC APP .
This brought back contrasting memories of making Railway Reservations in the early 1970s . Making reservations during the summer holidays either for self or family and freinds was almost an annual affair . Making reservations from
Bombay ( it is Mumbai now ) to Madras / Tirunelveli even during normal days was an excercise in itself and during the summer school holidays it was at its peak and something which was almost a miracle if you could do it successfully.
Air Travel being extremely costly was far beyond our normal means . Train travel by 3 Tier Sleeper Class was all that one like me could then afford .
The journey from Bombay VT to Madras Central used to take all of 36 hours by the Coal fired steam locomotives of those days .
There used to be only manual reservations as Computerised Reservations had not yet been heard of then . The reservations would commence one month before the scheduled departure date at 8.00 AM at the precise counter marked for the Madras Mail at the Victoria Terminus Station .
The queue formation would start the previous evening itself and a serpentine queue would be there by 10.00 PM .
Couple of youngsters ( then ) like us would watch the evening movie show at The Metro Theatre which was almost opposite to the VT Station and just a stones throw distance away and line up in the queue for the ticket sale commencing the next morning at 8.00 AM.
The whole night would be spent between chats , short naps and many cups of coffee and tea intermingled with scuffles with queue breakers . One would be lucky if he could lay his hands on the valued card ticket by noon .
Tired and sleep deprived , the feel of the prized ticket would be almost akin to having won the Gold Medal at the Olympics and that too in the 100 MTS sprint .
Times have surely changed but each had it's own charm and brings back nostalgic memories of the past and the happier and easier ones of the present .
This brought back contrasting memories of making Railway Reservations in the early 1970s . Making reservations during the summer holidays either for self or family and freinds was almost an annual affair . Making reservations from
Bombay ( it is Mumbai now ) to Madras / Tirunelveli even during normal days was an excercise in itself and during the summer school holidays it was at its peak and something which was almost a miracle if you could do it successfully.
Air Travel being extremely costly was far beyond our normal means . Train travel by 3 Tier Sleeper Class was all that one like me could then afford .
The journey from Bombay VT to Madras Central used to take all of 36 hours by the Coal fired steam locomotives of those days .
There used to be only manual reservations as Computerised Reservations had not yet been heard of then . The reservations would commence one month before the scheduled departure date at 8.00 AM at the precise counter marked for the Madras Mail at the Victoria Terminus Station .
The queue formation would start the previous evening itself and a serpentine queue would be there by 10.00 PM .
Couple of youngsters ( then ) like us would watch the evening movie show at The Metro Theatre which was almost opposite to the VT Station and just a stones throw distance away and line up in the queue for the ticket sale commencing the next morning at 8.00 AM.
The whole night would be spent between chats , short naps and many cups of coffee and tea intermingled with scuffles with queue breakers . One would be lucky if he could lay his hands on the valued card ticket by noon .
Tired and sleep deprived , the feel of the prized ticket would be almost akin to having won the Gold Medal at the Olympics and that too in the 100 MTS sprint .
Times have surely changed but each had it's own charm and brings back nostalgic memories of the past and the happier and easier ones of the present .
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