Browse content similar to The Romance of Indian Railways. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
BBC Four Collections - | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
archive programmes chosen by experts. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
For this Collection, Gary Boyd-Hope | 0:00:07 | 0:00:09 | |
has selected programmes celebrating Britain's steam railway legacy. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:13 | |
More programmes on this theme | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
and other BBC Four Collections | 0:00:15 | 0:00:16 | |
are available on BBC iPlayer. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:18 | |
NARRATOR: There are those who love the splendid steam train - | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
the great and disappearing iron horse - | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
and there are those who love India. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
And there are, happily, those who love both, | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
knowing that the one was made by the other. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:01:43 | 0:01:45 | |
SITAR AND TABLA MUSIC | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
To all romantic amateurs of the history that runs on rails | 0:01:57 | 0:02:02 | |
and that which stands changelessly since the days of the nobles, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
this is an affectionate salaam to the past that created the present. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:10 | |
Now, of course, development means diesel - | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
a thing of little charm and no chuff, but that is progress. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
India makes her own engines now, and even exports them. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
Urban India couldn't live without its railways. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
Imagine the commuter traffic into one Bombay station alone | 0:02:49 | 0:02:53 | |
of nearly 1.5 million a day - | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
a rush-hour train every three minutes, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
each with 4,000 people aboard, or almost aboard - | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
all packed so tight, it's almost impossible to pick a pocket. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
Of the 2,800 million Indians who use the railways every year, | 0:03:12 | 0:03:16 | |
nearly half are commuters. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
The suburban lines have been electrified these 40-odd years - | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
obviously had to be, to handle this sort of sardine traffic. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
How could India do without the electric train? | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
Well, in many places, luckily it does. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:35 | |
The Puffing Billy is still the workhorse of the countryside | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
and of the hills, and its lover, historian, and defender of the faith | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
is a dedicated English zealot | 0:03:42 | 0:03:43 | |
whose life's purpose now is the preservation | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
of the great Indian steam train in a permanent museum in Delhi. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
His name is Mike Satow. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:51 | |
MIKE SATOW: The first railway that I can recall ever turning me on | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
was the Matheran railway. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
I think that's one of the most exciting little railways, | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
built most improbably, very little known by anyone outside India, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
but it stems from the early days of this century. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:12 | |
It's the only link with Matheran and the outside world, and it represents | 0:04:12 | 0:04:17 | |
a technical achievement of some magnitude, | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
even though the scale is small. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
I think a very good historical relic of the sort of technical ingenuity | 0:04:22 | 0:04:26 | |
that was being practised in the late 19th century. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
The railway itself is 12 miles of track, | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
which on the map only covers four miles from point to point. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
But in the course of that it rises 2,000 feet, | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
there are 281 curves, and probably the sharpest curve | 0:04:45 | 0:04:49 | |
on any working railway in the world, because the radius is only 45 feet. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
And to get round these corners, | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
they have special engines which were the brainchild | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
of a dilettante engineer, Sir Arthur Haywood, | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
a landed gentleman in Derbyshire, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:04 | |
and his hobby was railways, and he used to build his own engines, | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
and they are the only known examples of this type of engine in existence | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
in the world, and furthermore they're all working, and working very well. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
There are four steam engines on this railway which, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:17 | |
since 1907, have been hauling the trains up and lowering them down, | 0:05:17 | 0:05:23 | |
outwardly rather conventional engines, | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
but inwardly, rather complicated and very novel engines | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
which must be a full justification for the design which went into them | 0:05:29 | 0:05:34 | |
on a landed estate in Derbyshire. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
NARRATOR: Mike Satow was once managing director of ICI in India. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:45 | |
For 15 years he lived in the country. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:48 | |
Retired to England, he resolutely returns twice a year | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
to the India he loves, and the trains he loves perhaps even more. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
36,000 miles of railway spread a net over India, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
uniting this huge country as nothing else could do. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
This was the one holy bountiful legacy bequeathed to India | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
by a British Raj, perhaps the only one. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
It all began in Bombay | 0:07:12 | 0:07:13 | |
and its memorial and temple is Victoria Terminus. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
Victoria Terminus was built, as was the manner of the 1880s, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
in the likeness of a shrine - a technological cathedral, | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
a great caravanserai in the most flowering | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
Victorian Gothic Saracenic Italianate Oriental St Pancras Baroque | 0:07:32 | 0:07:37 | |
to the glory of her late Imperial Majesty, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
and that of the great steam train. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
So the British bequeathed to India the trains and the stations | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
and the currency of a common language, and you might say, | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
a touch of the class system too, though India had hardly need of that. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
The old times of the Raj also provided the rolling stock, | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
and some of these old beauties still remain, largely thanks to Mike Satow, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:52 | |
whose dream, now taking shape in Delhi, is the railway museum, | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
where the first of the old iron elephants is going - | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
not to die, but in fact to live. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
THEY CHANT IN NATIVE LANGUAGE | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
Did you manage to get the boiler examination done before it came? | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
- Yes. - What's it like? | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
It is very good. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:37 | |
- Is it? - You've got to test it. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
So that means, really, we've only got minor...odd minor repairs | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
- like the front spring pins to do. - Yes, only minor repairs. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:45 | |
- Has it been running? - Yes. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
MIKE SATOW: Fairy Queen is only the first of our exhibits. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
There are hundreds more to come. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:54 | |
When the museum's finished, it should be the most comprehensive, | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
perhaps one of the largest in the world. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
NARRATOR: 400 years ago, the great and wise Mughal Emperor, | 0:10:07 | 0:10:11 | |
Akbar, built the city of Fatehpur Sikri near Agra, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
abandoned within 50 years because its wells ran dry. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
Now it is a thing of dead beauty, a monument. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
MIKE SATOW: I want to see India's industrial heritage preserved, | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
as well as her monuments. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:33 | |
After all, the Taj Mahal doesn't have much of a break-up value as scrap, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
but unfortunately a locomotive does. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
So unless we preserve them today, they'll just disappear. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
My wife, Peggy, of course, had rather different interests from mine. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
She was very much involved with Indian art, Indian music | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
and charitable work, | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
and on many occasions we'd been travelling together | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
for long periods perhaps, in Indian trains. Because journeys are long, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:14 | |
travel on railways over long distances | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
becomes almost a way of life. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
A journey may take two, three, four, five days, even. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:25 | |
And so you take your cooking equipment, | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
you take your sleeping equipment, you may sleep in a railway coach, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
you may sleep on a station platform - life goes on, | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
and in the course of it, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
you ultimately move across the subcontinent. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:37 | |
NARRATOR: The evening brings that imperative of the night, | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
the ubiquitous bedroll. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:53 | |
The bedroll - turning up each evening. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
No-one who knows India will ever forget it, nor ever remember it | 0:12:15 | 0:12:18 | |
without nostalgia maybe for the great railway names - | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
the Frontier Mail, the Deccan Queen, the Brindavan, the Rajdhani Express - | 0:12:21 | 0:12:27 | |
and even, perhaps, for the empire on which the sun did finally set. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:31 | |
MIKE SATOW: One of the interesting things about the research work | 0:12:44 | 0:12:48 | |
and the investigation work that I've been doing for this museum has been | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
the need to go off into all sorts of very remote corners of India. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:56 | |
The Rajasthan desert, for example, | 0:12:56 | 0:12:57 | |
held out the prospect of finding a special class of five locomotives. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:01 | |
I had reason to believe that some of the engines that were there | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
had now disappeared, or were laid aside, | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
so I wanted to go and investigate for myself | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
what in fact was still working there. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
NARRATOR: What a place is India for the engineer - not only huge, | 0:13:12 | 0:13:16 | |
but hostile - rivers to be bridged, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:18 | |
jungles to be cut, mountains to be tunnelled. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
Nothing is easy in India, but it gets done. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
There are 1,750,000 Indians working on the railways, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
by far the biggest employer in the land. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
The gang men on the track pause to give a quick namaste | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
to the official trolley. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:38 | |
What sort of token system do you use here, or block system? | 0:14:07 | 0:14:12 | |
This section, I suppose, is on Neale's ball token instrument. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
That's a small token, you know? I'll show you at the next station. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
And that instrument does lock and block. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
It cannot be operated by simultaneous coordination | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
- of the two stationmasters. - I see. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
And not more than one token can be taken out from one end. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:33 | |
So only one driver can have a token? | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
Yes. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:37 | |
NARRATOR: The signal system works with some elaboration. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:41 | |
The points man takes the token from the trolley. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
He then inserts it in the signal. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:48 | |
He takes the key... | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
..approaches the lever... | 0:14:53 | 0:14:55 | |
..and pulls it. | 0:14:57 | 0:14:58 | |
The points then change. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
The points man runs over to the point and locks it. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
He pulls the signal lever, and the signal goes down. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:20 | |
This wonderful rigmarole not only fulfils the Indian love | 0:15:20 | 0:15:24 | |
of complication - it's also safe. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
- These are the gang men, you know. - Typical Rajasthan gang. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:31 | |
Yes... | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
You wouldn't have to ask anybody if you looked out of the window. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
Mr Vishlani's men, you see, they are belonging to a particular | 0:15:35 | 0:15:39 | |
Rahat tribe, which used to be, in olden days, criminals. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
Were they? You've tamed them? | 0:15:44 | 0:15:46 | |
Yes, before the railways came into being. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
After the railways are come into being, we have found them. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
MIKE SATOW: I went out into the Kamli Ghat section, | 0:15:52 | 0:15:56 | |
on a single metre gauge line, and for working the heavy mineral trains, | 0:15:56 | 0:16:00 | |
special engines were built in 1929, and they've been working there | 0:16:00 | 0:16:04 | |
ever since, one engine on the front, one engine on the back. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
And since 1929, these five engines | 0:16:08 | 0:16:10 | |
have been shouldering this massive task | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
of moving the tonnage of freight up this incline, | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
and they're still in fighting fettle. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
So you're re-laying this - this 75 pound? | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
Yes. We have re-laid this track only about three years ago. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:36 | |
Yeah? Is this old stuff over here? | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
Yes, this is the stuff. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
- Let's have a look at it. - Have a look. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
I'll say it's old. Come here. Look! | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
Look at this. It's got railing marks on it. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:54 | |
These are 1887. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:55 | |
These are older than anything I've got in the museum so far. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
- I didn't know that. - Yes, they are. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
I'd like some of these. So what are you doing with this? | 0:18:00 | 0:18:02 | |
We imitate this weight of these old rail stores | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
for disposal orders and scrap. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
Oh, right. Let's just see what lengths these are. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
Four, five, six... | 0:18:11 | 0:18:14 | |
eight, nine...30-footers. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:17 | |
Yes, you're absolutely right. These are 30-foot rails. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
- You are right. - Will you keep ten for me? | 0:18:19 | 0:18:21 | |
Yes, excellent. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
Kindly get the orders so that I have the necessary authority. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
All right. I'll do that. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
HORN BLASTS | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
NARRATOR: The Indian railways are an enormous absorbent of labour - | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
the one commodity, perhaps, of which the nation is never short. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
They are as hierarchical as India itself. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
There are those who are saluted, and there are those who salute. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
Those 36,000 miles of railway track need endless maintenance, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
and almost endless men, which is not indeed a bad thing, on the whole. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
But this immense system of communications | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
needs all manner of men, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:08 | |
all manner of skills and crafts and backroom techniques. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:12 | |
The days are done when the lines were shared among many companies - | 0:20:12 | 0:20:16 | |
the great Indian Peninsula, the Madras Company, | 0:20:16 | 0:20:18 | |
the Bombay, Baroda and Central India, | 0:20:18 | 0:20:21 | |
the Jamnagar-Dwarka and dozens more. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
Indian railways belong to India now. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
An awful lot of it still depends on that good old fossil fuel, coal. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:37 | |
And a good thing, too, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:38 | |
since India has quite a lot of coal and not much oil. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:41 | |
And coal is comparatively cheap and oil is ferociously dear. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
In consequence, however, | 0:21:08 | 0:21:09 | |
a good deal of this loose coal gets itself nicked, | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
as indeed do most movable and stealable assets of the railways, | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
sometime or another. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:17 | |
Therefore, someone has to keep a pretty close eye on the scene. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
And before you triumphantly interrupt, | 0:21:20 | 0:21:22 | |
let us agree that this scene was set up. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
It was enacted as, shall we say, | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
a training exercise for the railway police. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:28 | |
MIKE SATOW: The great advantage of the steam engine | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
is that it is very cheap to build, it's very reliable | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
and it can be maintained by more or less anyone. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
The steam locomotive is a labour-intensive machine, | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
compared with the diesel or the electric. | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
But on the other hand, labour is available in India | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
and is very well versed in maintaining the steam engine. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
NARRATOR: They have, of course, to go to training schools | 0:22:06 | 0:22:10 | |
to learn the complications of the modern systems. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
Any indication on the signal post. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
Now, sometimes, this signal becomes defective. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
That time, the driver or the motorman is authorised | 0:22:19 | 0:22:24 | |
by the station master to pass that signal by a written authority, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:29 | |
which, on our Western Railway, is prescribed on form TA T8B. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:34 | |
Second signal, under this system of working, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
is semi-automatic stop signal. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
NARRATOR: Howrah, in Calcutta, | 0:22:41 | 0:22:42 | |
is the biggest passenger station in all India. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:45 | |
Just a glance at Howrah shows how much of India's economy | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
relies on the rail - not just the passengers, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:51 | |
but all the other businesses who depend on the station. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
The taxis, the coaches. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
The rickshaws... | 0:22:59 | 0:23:01 | |
..and the porters - | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
1,800 of them in Howrah alone, unpaid and living on baksheesh. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
But still it's the ironmongery of this great business | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
that absorbs Mike Satow. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
The locomotives, their hisses and snorts to be recorded here | 0:23:27 | 0:23:31 | |
and recollected in tranquillity. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
One of the prototype WD class, built by Baldwin, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
of which there are seven left. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
Faizabad. Number 7208. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:44 | |
RECORDING: 'Comes into INDISTINCT Cantonment Station. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:48 | |
'And this one happens to be drawing behind it | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
'one of the standard tenders...' | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE DROWNS OUT VOICE | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
NARRATOR: Udaipur was once a princely state of great prestige and renown. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:10 | |
The Lake Palace is now a tourist hotel of equally great | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
prestige and renown, perhaps the loveliest in India. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
There in the middle of the Pichola Lake in an unspoiled town | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
with the dhobi ghats coming down to the water's edge, | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
you would think you had everything. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
But Mike Satow dreams only of trains. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:47 | |
MIKE SATOW: Ron Kumar, the curator of the museum, | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
had only recently been appointed and there was much to show him. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:53 | |
You can't learn everything by just looking into dusty files. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:57 | |
I took him around with me on several visits. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
One of the more exciting ones, I think, from his point of view, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:04 | |
was the monorail at Patiala. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:06 | |
There's the engine shed and the track coming in here | 0:25:07 | 0:25:11 | |
and another track over there. | 0:25:11 | 0:25:14 | |
Here's the remains of one of the passenger coaches. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:18 | |
And here is Colonel Bowles' saloon, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
with some of the original paintwork and lining on it, | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
so we can get all that. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
And then up the front here, we've got the engines. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:29 | |
Let's go and have a look at those for a start. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
This one's very good, but, unfortunately, | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
the boiler's missing off this one and I can't find it anywhere at all. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
In splendid condition, you know, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:40 | |
because these things haven't worked for 47 years. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
We've even got the original lettering on the side of these things. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
What is PSMT? | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
It's the Patiala State Monorail Trainway. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
What is the history of this monorail? | 0:25:52 | 0:25:53 | |
It was built in 1907 for the maharajah by Colonel Bowles. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
It ran for 20 years. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
It came into this engine shed and never ran again. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
All that's happened is the rails have been buried by wind-borne dust, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:07 | |
trees have grown up around the track over there between two wagons. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
But, apart from that, the climate is so good, | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
that everything has been preserved very well indeed. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:15 | |
The principle of this monorail was for temporary light railways | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
for building factories, | 0:26:19 | 0:26:21 | |
moving materials about on construction sites. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:23 | |
And they were never in one place for more than about one month. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:27 | |
And it didn't really matter what the condition of the ground was like. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:32 | |
It only had the one rail under the centre | 0:26:32 | 0:26:34 | |
and the weight was about 90% on the rail, 10%... | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
This wheel which ran on the road to steady it, | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
but after 20 years going over the same track, | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
it got into a fair amount of difficulty | 0:26:43 | 0:26:45 | |
because of the grooves worn by the iron wheel here. | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
Did they have such systems in any other countries? | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
Not this system. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
This system was only used in India. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:55 | |
These engines themselves came from Berlin. They're on a standard couple. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:59 | |
The main thing now is, having found it, | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
we've got an opportunity of saving it. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
I don't mind how long it takes to get it put back into working order, | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
the important thing is that anything as historic as this | 0:27:07 | 0:27:10 | |
just should not be cut up and sold for scrap. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:13 | |
But if we can get this thing to Delhi, lay a bit of this track, | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
because there obviously is still plenty of track in the yard here, | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
if we could do that, this would be an absolute winner, it really would. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
NARRATOR: Indians are great travellers within their own land. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
Some of them, you'd think they almost lived on trains. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:52 | |
The vast bulk of them travel hard, third class, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
for hours and hours and days and days. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
INDISTINCT CONVERSATION THROUGHOUT | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
Patience. Patience is the thing | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
and no-one has more of that than the Indians. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 | |
We shall arrive sometime, somewhere. We always do. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:33 | |
STATION HUBBUB | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
An Indian railway station is more than a stopping place. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
It is, in fact, a way of life. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:51 | |
Indian people don't GO to railway stations, | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
they inhabit them, sometimes literally so. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:57 | |
The station is a social centre, a nexus of life, | 0:28:57 | 0:29:00 | |
a bazaar, an island of activity in the midst of 800,000 villages, | 0:29:00 | 0:29:05 | |
where you can come by almost anything you want, | 0:29:05 | 0:29:08 | |
from an orange to a bangle. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:10 | |
INDISTINCT CONVERSATION | 0:29:18 | 0:29:20 | |
It may be a couple of days, or three, before your train is due, | 0:29:24 | 0:29:28 | |
so what can be the hurry? | 0:29:28 | 0:29:29 | |
In the meantime, on the station, | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
one plays, waits... | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
lives, waits some more while time slips by, | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
washes, eats, sleeps, reflects on eternity. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
Above all, waits. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
WOMAN SINGS INDIAN SONG | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
PIG SQUEALS | 0:31:46 | 0:31:48 | |
Even on the track, there are pickings to be made. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
Even cinders are not without value in a poor country. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:04 | |
And Indian railway values and economics | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
are not to be judged by Western standards. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
Of course, there are hundreds and thousands | 0:32:10 | 0:32:12 | |
of ticketless travellers every day. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
The railways tolerate them. What else could they do? | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
Benares, on the Ganges, is the holiest place | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
on the holiest river for all pious Hindus. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
At sunrise, it is a place for the cleansing of the soul. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:35 | |
Yet this peculiarly sacred place | 0:32:50 | 0:32:52 | |
is one of the major centres of the Indian railways. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:56 | |
Most of the pilgrims come to Benares by train, after all, | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
from all over India to this especially hallowed riverside | 0:32:58 | 0:33:03 | |
where one washes away one's spiritual impurities in the Ganges... | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
though perhaps acquiring a few physical ones in the process. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:11 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
And the tireless Mike Satow is still at work, | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
still busy on the enshrining of the great Indian railway system | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
on film, tape and memory. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:15 | |
And coaxing the powers that be not to forget | 0:34:15 | 0:34:18 | |
what the railways were all about. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:21 | |
VOICE DROWNED OUT BY TRAIN | 0:34:34 | 0:34:39 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
MIKE SATOW: All over India, one finds | 0:34:57 | 0:34:59 | |
amongst the great family of railwaymen | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
the generosity and kindness | 0:35:02 | 0:35:05 | |
which has been so much a tradition of railwaymen. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
You find drivers who will invite you onto their footplate | 0:35:09 | 0:35:12 | |
and, quite frequently, | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
extend that hospitality beyond that of the footplate | 0:35:14 | 0:35:17 | |
and even into their own homes. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:19 | |
How do you do? Namaste. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:21 | |
- Here is the eldest son. - Eldest son. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
HE INTRODUCES THE FAMILY | 0:35:24 | 0:35:26 | |
- Please now take your seat. - Thank you very much. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:34 | |
Thank you. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
HE READS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
We also respect to our guest, Mr Michael. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
This is the way and significance that you have with us. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:10 | |
- Namaskar. - Namaskar. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
Sit down, please. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:16 | |
- Your family are coming, too? - Yes. | 0:36:16 | 0:36:20 | |
You come and sit down here, right? That's fine. | 0:36:26 | 0:36:30 | |
- Please, please. - Now, did... | 0:36:30 | 0:36:32 | |
Did Mrs Sharma make these? | 0:36:32 | 0:36:33 | |
Oh, yes. You should start all these things. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
I enjoy this food. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:38 | |
It is very, very kind of you to ask me to this, | 0:36:43 | 0:36:45 | |
this festival, because I've never been inside a family house | 0:36:45 | 0:36:49 | |
during a Diwali festival before. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
And this is really the Hindu New Year? | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
Yes, new Hindu year. So everything we start today. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
Yes. | 0:36:57 | 0:36:58 | |
NARRATOR: Diwali is, in fact, the autumn festival of lights, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:06 | |
when every Hindu home is aglow in honour of the coronation of Rama, | 0:37:06 | 0:37:10 | |
the God King, or the King God - | 0:37:10 | 0:37:12 | |
who could possibly know after 2,000 years? | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
It's dedicated to Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity, | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
so every little lamp and light is auspicious | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
for both this world and the next. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:22 | |
FIREWORKS DROWN OUT VOICES | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
Now we really take to the hills. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
This is what the true railway buffs all wait for - | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
the famous Darjeeling Himalaya Railway. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:38:02 | 0:38:04 | |
This is the spectacular little toy train with its 2ft gauge, | 0:38:18 | 0:38:22 | |
scrambling up the mountains on gradients sometimes 1 in 20, | 0:38:22 | 0:38:26 | |
chasing its own tail in extraordinary loops and curlicues. | 0:38:26 | 0:38:30 | |
A single-line track with all the down trains going one after the other | 0:38:30 | 0:38:34 | |
and then all the up trains going up. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:36 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:38:54 | 0:38:56 | |
Sometimes the track is too steep even to go in loops, | 0:39:35 | 0:39:39 | |
so the train has to reverse itself onto a new level, | 0:39:39 | 0:39:42 | |
while the one five minutes behind busily pursues it. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:45 | |
CHEERING | 0:40:11 | 0:40:14 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
It takes eight hours to do its 54 miles | 0:40:27 | 0:40:31 | |
and it isn't always quicker by rail, | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
not when you can hop off at one side of the loop | 0:40:33 | 0:40:35 | |
and hop back again on the other. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
You learn these techniques only through experience. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:41 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:40:45 | 0:40:47 | |
At the little hill town of Kurseong, the little hill train | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
runs smack down the middle of the main street. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
This is road-rail integration of the closest kind. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:19 | |
For a while, the train is a tram. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:22 | |
WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:41:24 | 0:41:25 | |
For all little hill towns, the train is an event, an occasion. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:29 | |
It is the train that links these remote places with everywhere else. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:33 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:41:41 | 0:41:43 | |
This is quite particular. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
For Mike Satow, a special little train as befits a specialist. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
An observation coach for the number-one connoisseur | 0:42:23 | 0:42:25 | |
of all Indian trains and the Himalayan toy train in particular. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
How many of the B-class engines are still working? | 0:42:30 | 0:42:33 | |
- All 25 of them are. - 25. All working. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
And, on line, we have 16 of them. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:42:40 | 0:42:42 | |
Every so often, of course, some disaster strikes this railway. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:02 | |
The monsoon washes away large sections of the track. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:06 | |
And every time this happens, those of us who love it | 0:43:06 | 0:43:09 | |
feel this must be the final death knell of the railway, | 0:43:09 | 0:43:12 | |
which, after all, is losing money | 0:43:12 | 0:43:13 | |
to the extent of 75% of its operating costs. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:16 | |
But there are strong arguments in keeping it alive. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:21 | |
First of all, if it were closed, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:25 | |
2,000, 2,500 people would be without a job | 0:43:25 | 0:43:28 | |
in an area which certainly can't provide alternative employment. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:32 | |
But even on the emotional side, on a more emotional side, | 0:43:35 | 0:43:39 | |
as seen by the railway enthusiast, | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
this is surely one of the most famous, | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
one of the best known of these hill railways. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:48 | |
I don't think anybody can fail to be moved by the excitement | 0:43:48 | 0:43:52 | |
of the toy railway, as it's called, up to Darjeeling. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:56 | |
It's always known in a most friendly fashion as the toy railway. | 0:43:56 | 0:44:00 | |
And for 54 miles, this exciting little railway plods uphill, | 0:44:00 | 0:44:05 | |
over the top at Ghum, right on top of the world. | 0:44:05 | 0:44:07 | |
Because when you come through Ghum | 0:44:07 | 0:44:10 | |
and into the famous double loop at Batasia, | 0:44:10 | 0:44:12 | |
you get your first glimpse of the snow | 0:44:12 | 0:44:15 | |
and Kanchenjunga looming behind Darjeeling, | 0:44:15 | 0:44:18 | |
which, at that point, lies about 600ft below you. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:21 | |
NARRATOR: Now, the downward coasting ride towards Darjeeling. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
Darjeeling, one of the famous hill stations of the high North-East, | 0:44:29 | 0:44:33 | |
squashed in at 7,000ft between Sikkim and Nepal, | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
almost within the shadow of Everest. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
A great resort for the sahibs in their heyday | 0:44:40 | 0:44:43 | |
and the rich tea planters from Assam. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:45 | |
Now, Darjeeling is a very cosmopolitan place indeed, | 0:44:47 | 0:44:50 | |
with its Nepalese, Lepchas, Sikkimese, Bengalis, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:54 | |
all the high-ground people of the edge of India. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
And now, of course, especially the refugee colonies from Tibet, | 0:44:57 | 0:45:00 | |
the society that insists on retaining its curious identity. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:04 | |
THEY SING | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
BELLS JANGLE | 0:45:57 | 0:46:00 | |
It is possible to find parts of India | 0:46:00 | 0:46:03 | |
that aren't within a bullock cart's ride of a railway line, | 0:46:03 | 0:46:06 | |
but it isn't easy. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:07 | |
PHONE RINGS | 0:46:11 | 0:46:13 | |
Hello. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:15 | |
HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
India is so big, so various. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
15 recognised languages and uncountable dialects, | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
which could well have been a great Balkanised confusion | 0:46:27 | 0:46:30 | |
had the railways not, in their long, lumbering way, united it. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:35 | |
Wherever you are in India, | 0:46:35 | 0:46:36 | |
when the train comes, everything stops for the train. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
HUBBUB | 0:47:09 | 0:47:11 | |
And when the train has gone, India takes over again. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
It isn't very beautiful, really. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
But it IS beautiful. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:16 | |
And because it's part of life, it isn't immortal. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:19 | |
This will go, one day, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:36 | |
unless Mike Satow and his friends succeed | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
and insist that it shall not go, | 0:48:39 | 0:48:41 | |
or at least not go unrecorded and unsung. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:45 |