RAILWAY RESERVATIONS THEN AND NOW -346 (75 )

 RAILWAY RESERVATIONS THEN AND NOW 

Camping as i was  at Regina in Canada then  , I had my own fears while making  Railway Reservation for the  Chennai to Tirunelveli section by train  for my return journey  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 own  reservations  about being able to do this successfully . online. 

  This , as it subsequently turned out 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 . My Net Banking facility made the payment even easier .

This brought back contrasting memories of making Railway Reservations in the early 1970 when I was in  Mumbai . Making reservations during the summer holidays either for self or family and freinds was almost an annual affair .

 Making reservations from the then 
Bombay VT  ( It is Mumbai now ) to Madras     ( It is Chennai Now )  and finally Tirunelveli even during normal days was an excercise in itself and during the summer school holidays it was at its peak and it  was almost  a miracle if you could do it successfully at the first attempt .

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 Train 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 hardly  a stones throw  distance away from the counter . The  line up in the queue for the ticket sale commencing the next morning at 8.00 AM would be there from the previous night itself .

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 prized  Card Ticket with the handwritten Coach and Berth Number by the issuing clerk by noon .

Tired and sleep deprived , the feel of the prized ticket in one's  pocket 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 which  bring back nostalgic memories of  the past and the happier and easier ones of the present .