Indian Railways Passenger List
With a colossal 23 million+ passengers (2021) using Indian Railways every day, the thrill and trill of seeing your name printed on a sheet glued to the side of a railway carriage in India is a quirk long-gone.
The confirmation of your seat & reservation now allocated to the excrabytes & tablets of the Travelling Ticket Examiners.
Gone are the days of lining up for hours to buy a ticket on Indian Railways as this can now be done from your phone in another hemisphere making a visit to India and travelling the rails infinitely easier.
As convenient as that is, it feels wrong to no longer have to check the seating charts on the platform to confirm your carriage, and then dashing to said carriage to see your name printed on its side.
Enjoying (most results aside) all Australian Cricket Tours to India since 1996, we have spent 1500+ hours on Indian Railways, after 100+ hours lining up to book our right to do so!
Until the Australian Cricket Tour to India 2023 confirmed the fully digital process (if you wanted it to be) it never ceased to amaze that amid the 'Kaos and Control', there was this bizarre practice of glueing one's name to the side of a carriage; confirming your seat number.
As flushed and bemused as one may have been on reaching the station, you could not help but offer yourself a soothing smile at seeing your name. It almost felt a personal connection to the system.
How could something so big and faceless, come to stick your little name on one of 13000 daily scheduled passenger services?
Many things change over the years, across the travelling world and perhaps none more than India. Yet, for all the frustrations & annoyances, red-tape & bureaucracies, nuances & quirks that India relentlessly dishes up, that which one would love to avoid most times, I'd still love to see my 'name on a train'.