Railways as a research/ marketing point

Considering the number of posts related to the railways on my blog, you might think I'm a railways stooge. Though not a stooge (most of my posts have been negative); yes, I'm fascinated by railways. The reason why railways fascinate me (the Indian Railways, that is) is that it is perhaps the biggest classrooms in public interactions. No other institution has so many people 'touch points'.

No other institution moves as many people 24/7. Of all the infrastructure categories, the railway has a very important role to play. Thousands of people queue and jostle, look at or search at kiosks, ferry their luggage, congregate with their families, buy snacks and tea, make plans for their future, think about their next day at work or sulk over a bad event, smartly dressed businessmen, excited children, coolies, vendors, people in ragged clothes, old people, crying infants, touring foreigners.

(Image courtesy: http://www.romanvirdi.com/delhi)

The railway stations especially, present an unimaginable variety of people and situations. I guess it must be every marketeers and ethnographers favorite playground. I'm sure someone could start a profitable research and observation deck on major railway stations in the country - dedicated research points where all kinds of surveys and observations get done and perhaps even the participants could be rewarded with say a 'sachet' product sample.

On a more personal level, apart from having been a frequent rail traveler, its the Railroad Tycoon game that taught me its importance (compared to today's games, this must be vintage stuff ;) ). I had the opportunity of developing a mobile game named Truck Tycoon on similar lines. It was wonderful to see small towns developing into trade hubs, residential centers and industrial locations once they were connected by the rail/road! It makes all the difference.


Also, sitting in the train or at the station gives you time to contemplate on the simpler things in life and ample time to type in a blog post or two ;)

Indian Railways - The Emergency Hammer again

Its the emergency hammers again. I think I'm addicted to this now. These are the other posts on my rendezvous with the emergency systems on Indian Railways:
- Jan Shatabdi Trivandrum Ernakulam - the invisible emergency hammer.
- Indian Railways - The Emergency Hammer returns.

This time it was on the Chengannur Thriuvananthapuram A/C Chair Car on the 'Parasuram express'.









1. Again there is a glass pane (which says its toughened glass) which needs to be broken before you get access to a chain which you're supposed to pull. This pull is somehow supposed to cause the emergency window to open (I guess its supposed to pull out the rubber beading and this would in turn free the big window glass). How do you break this small glass pane in the first place- should an emergency hammer have been installed near it? Or can the glass be broken with bare hands. A good answer might be - during an emergency, we'll find out!
2. Now, suppose you've learnt karate and with one chop you can smash the small glass. Whoever told you life is easy? This time they've bolted the chain with a steel strip over it in an unthoughtful improvisation. This metal strip is supposed to hide the curtain rails. Unfortunately, the cosmetics have effectively short circuited the core functionality of being an emergency window.

I seriously hope, with its cash surplus, the Indian Railways goes for a complete design overhaul. A hazaar things need to be made better, the chalta hai attitude must change. Or maybe Kaizen could do it well - continual little steps that could gradually make a big difference. Though unintentional, the continual neglect of passenger safety makes me a worried traveler, despite its relatively (compared to its scale of operations) good safety records.

Indian Railways - The Emergency Hammer returns

Looking for Emergency Hammers in AC coaches on Indian Railways has almost become an obsession for me now (My first post on this here). My last series of travels was on four trains. Ernakulam-Satna, Satna-Chennai and Chennai-Chengannur. On almost all the coaches, I found really obscure directions for Emergency Exit and The Non-Existent Emergency Hammers.


However, I did for the first time ever find ONE Emergency Hammer. Atleast I now know what it looks like ;). In case you folks haven't seen it either (very likely), here is a snap of THE Emergency Hammer. *Applause, applause please :) *

Jan Shatabdi Trivandrum Ernakulam - the invisible emergency hammer.

Train journeys are seldom uneventful. Yesterday, Jayadev and I went on a one-day business trip to Ernakulam (Kochi) and back to Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram). This was my first trip on the Jan Shatabdi Express (the link says how these trains came about). Though conceived as a 'cleaner', faster and slightly costlier service, it is does not even come close to what would internationally be considered fast and clean. A google search also drew out this undated document lamenting its low occupancy rate (? - our train was pretty full; the doc seems to have been written in 2003)

Anyways, this train is better than the average Indian 'train' on all counts (more on that later). Though low cost carriers like Air Deccan may soon threaten its existence - there are quite a few who'd prefer to travel well grounded :) So the good things first:

1. Pretty fast with just a few stops and pretty comfy luxury bus kinda push back seats.

2. GPS / GSM (?) based station display which shows ETA at the next stop, the time we passed last waypoint etc.

And now the bad things:

1. Whoever designed the air-conditioning system, gave no thought to the noise it made! It made a constant shrill high pitched tone almost throughout the journey! Unfortunately, no one else seemed to share my sensitivity towards this sound - they seemed happily unaware of the sound that was driving me crazy.

2. Tea / coffee / snacks. Although the entire journey hardly last a quarter of a day - it does make one hungry. I was pleasantly surprised to find Nescafe coffee vending machines and microwave ovens inside the compartments (Now that sounds like a first inside indian railways). However, I was told that these had just been there for a few weeks and might take months to get functional. I sure hope railways can make it operational asap.



3. Now for the (dangerously bad) icing on the spoilt cake ;) This is something that we Indians are pretty good at - being terribly unprepared for emergencies. The pictures are self explanatory. However, for those who cannot see the writing on the image clearly, here's the text - "HAMMER FOR BREAKING THE WINDOW GLASS DURING EMERGENCY". The only problem is - there is no hammer inside the beautifully sealed enclosure (or it is of the invisible kind). A quick glance revealed that even the next compartment had a non-existent emergency hammer.


Now, I do not know for sure how much difference that hammer might make in an emergency, but I sure do hope and pray that no-one gets into such a situation!

The changing face of India

(Originally published on my w2forum journal on 17th nov 2006)


I am now at a railway station Trivandrum, Kerala, India. I flipped open my laptop and was surprised to find that the place was a WiFi hotspot and I could browse the net. Now such a thing in such a place would have been unthinkable a few years back. So I took a snap from my bluetooth enabled K700 and am posting it straight off the phone and on the railway platform! I love the changing face of India :-)