Episode 3 World's Busiest Railway 2015

This week, we are plunging you into the chaotic

and exhilarating heart of the world's busiest railway.

Eight million passengers use these trains each day,

packed in more tightly than anywhere else on the planet.

Welcome to India. We are in the heart of Mumbai.

We're standing in front of one of the most famous

stations in the world, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus,

known affectionately by the locals as CST.

This really is a station running to the limits of what's possible.

This time,

we go behind the scenes of this incredible station to see how the

railway staff juggle the huge numbers of passengers,

the daily problems and, of course, those inevitable delays.

Here's what's coming up.

Over four programmes, we're revealing the organisational

wonders of this super-sized transport operation.

Tonight, we'll show you the side of the station passengers don't

get to see,

we witness a crisis in the control room...

..and discover the secret station workers who only come out at night.

Robert's unpacking the feats of engineering that keep this

place on track. Tonight, he visits a city-sized repair depot.

Everywhere you look, there's someone under a train, on a train,

in a train, it's just extraordinary.

Anita's checking out what life's like for Mumbai's commuters.

Now, that is an unique experience.

Tonight, she heads onto the roads of this crowded city.

-Is this a new road?

-It's a new road, yes.

It's the worst new road I've ever...

And John Sergeant continues his exploration of the history

of Indian railways.

He discovers how a silver ball keeps passengers safe.

-Ah, we've got...

-HE LAUGHS

Welcome to the world's busiest railway.

Mumbai is India's economic powerhouse, and this station,

CST, is the engine that drives it,

bringing commuters from the northern suburbs down to the southern

business district to work.

This station runs passenger trains 365 days a year,

21 hours a day, and for six of those hours, during the morning

and evening peak periods, the trains are so packed, they've come

up with a descriptive term for it -

it's called "super dense crush load".

And it's very apt. When you're on one of those trains,

it really does feel like the air is being crushed out of your body.

And the reason it's so busy? Well, it's a numbers game.

Mumbai grew incredibly fast as a city and now

eight million journeys are made on this rail network every working day.

And the railways are desperately trying to keep up with those figures.

They've scheduled more trains, they've made every train a third

longer and they are still trying to increase that capacity even more.

The trouble is, there's so little room for manoeuvre.

The controllers are responsible for getting these trains

in and out of these stations in the morning and the evening,

desperately juggle the schedule and space to try and ensure they don't

risk making hundreds of thousands of commuters very angry indeed.

Between five and eight o'clock at night,

all Mumbai's 5.5 million rail commuters care about is getting home.

The station is hot and very crowded.

Passengers are tired and need their trains to be on time.

We sent our cameras up into the nerve centre of the station,

the control room, just as rush hour was gearing up one evening,

to see how the controllers deal with this high-pressure part of the day.

Our guide is section controller Sachin Katika.

It's a very big responsibility we are having on our shoulder.

We have to take the decisions very cool and calmly.

We are doing our best and hoping for the best.

It's coming up to five o'clock.

Trains are running just 40 seconds apart.

And at the moment, the control team are responsible for more

than 60 trains on the lines in and out of the station.

There's so much traffic that the controllers must

rely on a computerised system to tell them where every train is.

This enormous board is a live

map of the tracks across 53km of Greater Mumbai.

The red dots indicate that a train is occupying the platform. See?

There is the one train on platform 15.

And the green dots, which are moving right now,

they show that a train is moving.

But when something goes wrong,

it's down to the skills of the controller to put it right.

So far, everything is running smoothly.

Trains are arriving and departing on time.

But almost 50,000 people are moving through the station when controllers

learn of a problem that could bring the whole system to a grinding halt.

There's a broken-down train sitting on the tracks, blocking

the high-speed route into Mumbai, and services are stacking up behind it.

These are the trains that commuters are waiting for at the station.

If they can't get into CST,

then the whole evening schedule will be delayed.

This could spell disaster for tonight's rush hour.

The controllers need to act quickly

and find a way to get trains into the station.

If a train has been delayed for 10, 15 minutes, all the things goes up.

It's the evening peak.

And a lot of passengers waiting for a train.

So if anything gets delayed,

then it's not a good thing for the people of India.

Chief controller for suburban punctuality Akhilesh Prasad, and his

team rely on their intimate knowledge of the complex mesh of tracks

to work out a diversion route.

Karjat 36, the first train behind the blockage, is the priority.

It's diverted onto a parallel line and back onto its original route

and Vidyavihar Station.

The remaining blocked trains are also sent this way.

We are diverting the trains and we are cancelling some locals,

so that...to maintain the punctuality of peak.

But this is only a temporary fix.

The train with the suspected fire on board is still blocking the line.

It's a small incident with the potential to have a big impact.

If controllers don't get the train off the line and the flow

of traffic back to normal, Mumbai's commuters will face long delays.

It takes 40 minutes to get the damaged train off the main line

and into a siding.

An event like this could have brought CST to a standstill,

but the quick-thinking controllers have averted disaster.

Here it was. This is the section.

Vikhroli. It was delayed. And now it is moving.

Now the line is clear, trains can revert to their pre-planned routes

and the flow of trains into and back out of CST can run on schedule.

On the platforms, passengers are unaware that the controllers

have ensured they all get home on time tonight.

The control team breathe a sigh of relief.

It's under control and everything has been manageable,

and punctuality is up to the mark.

And there is no delay so far.

Everything is under control.

Rush hour is back on track.

So, the man in charge of the control room

is the senior divisional manager, KN Singh.

Mr Singh, from an outsider's point of view, it does

look like you're working absolutely at the limit of what is possible.

-Absolutely.

-Would that be a fair assessment?

Absolutely, a fair assessment.

In peak hours, we are running with 100% capacity.

There is hardly any chance to add anything or to leave anything

-and there's no chance of any error.

-Right.

And everyone that works here knows they've got to get the train

-there on time?

-Everyone, all my technical team,

as well as those who are manning the team, they all are absolutely

working for the system to run at 100% punctuality.

So, what are your punctuality rates here?

We are having around 90%, 90% punctuality we are maintaining,

but in peak hours, that is the morning and evening peak,

-we do achieve 95-plus% of punctuality.

-That's pretty amazing.

With the amount of trains that are coming in, it's extraordinary.

-We are trying to achieve 100%.

-Right.

Trains must run on time with the kind of advancement

and signals and all the things...

In that film,

we saw a train that had actually broken down on one of the tracks

coming into the station, which clearly caused a bit of a problem.

What other problems do you face on a daily basis?

In such a big system, we have various types of failures,

like failures in train itself, which you saw.

There can be failure in old equipment,

there can be failure in track.

-There can be failure of signals.

-Right.

So, there are various types of failure which can happen.

That is certainly something we do hear in the UK, signal failure -

you're sitting on a train and it's not moving -

but what is signal failure?

Signal failure is a generic term for a lot of failures with

the signals, like many times signal can go wrong. It can just go off.

There can be failures in the points,

which will not be able to divert trains from one line to another,

from platform one to another, and those things.

-That could be a signal failure as well.

-Yeah, yeah.

There are a lot of reasons for that.

There can be failures in the circuitry itself.

There can be failures in the cable. Sometimes, people may...

A theft take place and they take all the cables.

You've got a lot of wires joined to a lot of tracks...

A lot of wires, a lot of trains going to the point.

Yes. So, what is the kind of rate of failures on a sort of average day?

How many failures do you get like that?

It used to happen a lot,

but now we have control of signal failure at a large extent, but still

it is around five to six failures a day in our entire system.

In the Mumbai suburban system, it is still a cause of concern

and we are trying to control it also.

We have kept our specialised men who can fix the signal very fast.

So, someone actually goes out, physically fixes it on the track?

Yeah, if there are any problems,

our men can set right within a few minutes.

-Thank you very much, Mr Singh.

-Thank you, thank you.

It's early afternoon at the station.

A brief lull between the intensity of the morning

and evening rush hours.

But for one group of people, the pressure's always on.

140 drivers, known as motormen around here, are on shift today.

Driving is a responsible and stressful job,

getting crowded trains safely in and out of the station.

It's made more difficult by the behaviour of passengers

who frequently cross and walk on the lines.

This is an unavoidable hazard for drivers.

By the time they see someone on the track, it's too late to stop.

Nine people a day across Mumbai are killed when they are hit by trains.

And the motormen are at the sharp end of those figures.

We went on board with one to take in the view from the cab

and find out how he feels about his job.

My name is Sabu Anthony. I'm working for Central Railway as a motorman.

I've been working for the railways now for the past 24 years.

I like being a motorman because it's a very responsible job.

We have to be at that end of the platform before the train comes.

We have two sets of keys, so we have to check the warning system

and the brake system.

OK, we are ready to start.

Driving a train, it is much harder than it looks.

You see it as very easy because that person is just sitting

and moving the handle from here to there.

But it takes a lot on you mentally and physically,

doing the same thing again and again and again.

The motorman has to have very good concentration.

He has to be of a very tough mind and the third thing is,

he has to be very patient.

We are slowing down because we are going to stop at the next station.

During the peak hours, we take more precautions

because the trains are all getting jam-packed.

We are late by one minute.

We started two minutes late, so now we are one minute late.

We have made up one minute.

This train has a maximum speed of 100kph.

We are used to driving at that speed.

So you just concentrate on your job, because even a small

lapse of concentration can cost you very badly.

As a motorman, we used to get

nervous whenever anybody walks on the track.

Now it's like we are used to it, people walking on the tracks.

The only thing we have to do is keep on whistling out for them

to wander.

Trespassers are a norm.

There have been many suicide cases also.

It has happened many times to me.

In this 12 years, you can say about 25 to 30 cases.

Everybody wants to avoid that.

If you are on a high speed and you've got a trespasser quite

close to your train, you feel your heart beats a bit more higher,

because you are trying to save him and drive the train also.

If it is possible, we try our best to apply the emergency brake.

Other than that, we cannot do anything.

We are going to reach the last station, Thane.

We will be going to Thane platform number 1. We are on time.

Once you do your job correctly, without any incident and without

any delay, you feel very satisfied, I've done my job properly.

Sabu and his colleagues are under pressure every hour of the day,

although stress levels rise during rush hour,

when there's no wiggle room in the schedule.

But they do have a place where they can relax,

and Anita's got special permission to take us inside.

We're leaving the concourse and entering a restricted area.

This is where Sabu would hang out before he'd begin his shift to

drive the train.

It says quite clearly here - outsider's entry strictly prohibited.

We are going in for one time only to the motorman's lobby.

This is where the drivers hang out. Follow me.

Hello, gentlemen. Hello, hello.

So, the first thing the driver would do is clock in.

And the way he would do that is to sign the register.

Thank you.

Here's the register.

This is where he says - I'm here, ready for duty.

Second thing that happens, very important, is the breathalyser test

and they must not have had a drop of alcohol for at least eight hours.

Then they come over to the this area. This is the nerve centre.

Right here on the screen,

they have been fed information from the control room

about live train departures, what trains are coming in,

what platforms they're going to, what trains are going out,

so they can pick up all that information.

Then they make a trip to something that's ubiquitous all over India.

You have them in homes, in your car.

It is, of course, the all-important shrine.

And here we have a Hindu temple, with a selection of gods

that you can pray to to bless you

before you begin your day's work, very important.

The next thing they will do

is come to these blue files.

These blue files tell them what engineering works are taking place,

so they will know where the delays will be.

And then they can have a chill out.

This is their social area. Let's have a peek.

So you may have noticed quite a lot of men in here.

CROWD CHATTERS

That's because there are 733 motormen

and ONE motorwoman.

I can't imagine that she spends much time in here.

This is a very well-respected job.

They get paid seven times more than the national average salary

and they have to train for 13 years, that includes on-the-job experience.

Compare that to a train driver in the UK, who has to train for two years.

In here, you also have noticeboards,

these are telling them all about their union meetings.

Oh, we do have some women in here. Very official-looking women.

Hello, ladies.

Up there, you have the canteen.

Up here, you have their lockers.

And then they wait. They wait until their shift begins.

It's a six-hour shift,

which will consist of one long journey, one shorter journey.

The trains run for 21 hours, so, if they're on a very early shift,

there is a dormitory where they can have a nap.

These chaps work incredibly hard, but then so do the carriages.

They do 500 kilometres every day,

so after every 18 months, they have a complete overhaul.

MACHINE BLARES

Ten kilometres north of the station is the Matunga Workshop.

Over 7,000 people work at this 86-acre site,

inspecting and repairing carriages.

It's so amazingly huge here, it's just vast.

I've seen barely any of it.

Everywhere you look, there's someone under a train,

on a train, in a train, taking something out of a train,

putting something in a train. It's just extraordinary!

They overhaul more than 3,000 coaches here every year.

In charge of this mammoth undertaking

is chief mechanical engineer Amit Saurastri.

So, Amit, how many coaches are in here at one time?

It's... There's so many.

At any point of time, we have around some 200-odd coaches.

And so, how old are the coaches that you're looking after here?

A coach's life varies from around, say, two years to 25 years.

Oh, I see, so some of them can be quite new.

-You'd still check them to be sure?

-Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So you're checking everything on the coach?

-The brakes, the wheels, the bearings, the seats.

-Yeah, yeah.

It seems to be everything you're doing.

-Absolutely, we can't take a chance.

-Yeah.

Why do they need to be checked every 18 months?

It seems like a lot of checking.

In every train, around 1,000 persons are travelling,

so, to ensure the safety of every person,

it is mandatory to have these safety checks.

MACHINE BLARES

As soon as a carriage arrives, it gets stripped of its wheels.

There it goes, it's going up.

It actually looks remarkably simple.

CRANE WHIRS

Just a massive crane, with great big hooks

that lifts the whole thing up in the air.

THEY SHOUT

I've been round a few engineering works,

this is one of the most extreme.

It's pretty impressive.

'The wheel units, known as bogies,

'are wheeled out of the way for a separate inspection.

'Because these are the only parts of the train that touch the track,

'they are the most likely elements to cause an accident.'

Wow. So this is... Oh, my God, this is where all the wheels

-are sorted out.

-Yeah.

-Wow, it's huge!

Each wheel is removed from the bogie

before being spun on a lathe to make sure it's perfectly round.

But one of the most crucial jobs is carried out by hand.

Ah, so, what have we got here, Amit?

This guy's inspecting the bearing.

-Right.

-Yeah.

-So, can you tell me, what is a bearing, basically?

I mean, that is a bearing, but what is it? What's its job?

The bearing is a very important part of the wheel assembly.

It helps the wheel to rotate.

And all these small wheels do is allow it to spin round

-with less friction and less...?

-Yeah.

This part rotates, along with the wheel.

These guys, whoever is inspecting the bearing here,

they are inspecting very thoroughly.

-Checking all the rollers.

-Right.

-One by one, one by one.

There shouldn't be any crack here.

What do you do if there is a very small crack in some part?

Even if the small crack is there, the bearing is rejected.

So the whole thing goes. You don't use it any more?

Yeah, we don't take even a 1% chance.

Right. So what's the condition of this particular bearing, Amit?

Is this one all right?

Er, let me see. I think here's a scratching...

-Yeah, no, no. This particular roller has gone.

-Ah, no!

The roller flaking is there, yeah.

So there's a tiny crack in that, which you can barely see,

-it's not a big crack.

-Yep.

So what would happen if you didn't replace this? What could go wrong?

-It can lead to bearing failure, out of heat generation.

-Right.

So it still keeps spinning,

-because the train is...?

-It keeps on rotating.

-Yeah.

It keeps on rotating, it generates high temperature

-and it can cause fire, also.

-Right.

-And a fire in a moving train...

..is not a good thing.

That's why this bearing inspection is a very, very important task.

CLATTERING

'After the wheels, it's the bodywork that needs attention

'and the method here...

'is surprisingly low-tech.'

-I'm going to have a go.

-TAPPING

-Sounds good, yeah.

-TAPPING

It might sound like they're just making music on a train carriage,

but what they're actually doing is they're listening

-to the sound the tap makes.

-TAPPING

That sounds very, very solid.

So they can tell if it's got corrosion, if it's got holes.

They're checking for rust holes and damage like that,

then they mark it with a bit of chalk

so that the repair team come in and mend it, basically.

HISSING

ROBERT LAUGHS

Right, that's a very good example.

-That's not good.

-No.

-Not good?

-Not good.

-Yeah.

So here there's some actual corrosion.

And they've found it, they've marked it off with chalk,

so this has got to be repaired, this is a problem.

So that has definitely got some, erm...

-HE LAUGHS

-It's not very...

-Yeah. Oh, that's all right there.

-Yeah.

-It's here.

-It's bad.

-Yeah, very bad.

Heavily corroded areas, like this one,

have new steel plates welded into place

to extend the life of the carriage.

And the reconditioned bogies are locked back into place.

LOCKS CLANG

Structural integrity sorted,

it's time to move on to some cosmetic improvements.

The interiors of the carriages are inspected for wear and tear.

Any seats that are worn or torn get reupholstered.

There's quite a few seats here.

The team here can re-cover 400 seats a day.

First they strip them and re-pad them...

..before newly sewn covers are glued on.

I don't want to mess this up, that's really nice.

Believe it or not, I've used these machines before.

'I used to be a shoemaker,

'so I'm hoping the same principles apply here.'

SEWING MACHINE WHIRS

Oh, I've gone off!

I thought I'd be better than this.

Now round the corner is so hard. Oh, Lord!

HE LAUGHS

How do you do that?

That's a little gap there? OK, that's a mistake.

All right, I admit that. I admit that that's bad.

OK, but this bit... Look, let me just show you this bit.

That bit, there...

..that's not too bad.

'Once the new seats are in, the final step is a coat of paint.

'It takes a total of five days to paint each carriage,

'and everything is done by hand.'

It is extraordinary that there's actual people

painting the trains with brushes.

I guess I assumed spray guns in the paint shop,

but, no, it's done by brush.

Even the fine stuff, that's amazing.

As soon as the paint's dry,

the carriage is ready to go back into service.

The final step is a stencil to say its service is complete.

That place looked fantastic.

In fact, I was particularly jealous of you

getting those mallets and whacking the side of those trains.

It is always fun smashing stuff with a big hammer, I have to say, yeah.

But it's also fun coming up here,

great bird's-eye view of the whole of CST.

-Absolutely. Well, it's vast.

-It is.

Well, it's over 70 acres in total, the total site.

And just to give some idea of our location,

that over there is the dome

that's right at the front of the old station.

And in front of that, right in front of us there,

is the seven suburban platforms.

And then, over there, so I guess you can see,

-just beyond those blue trains there...

-Yep.

..those are the inter-city, long-distance platforms.

-TRAIN HORN BLARES

-They are for the trains that are

going to go right the way across India.

-And they are particularly long, those ones.

-Yeah.

One of those platforms is over half a kilometre long.

And to give you a sense of the scale, compared to the UK,

a train in the UK going from between, say, Manchester and London

might be about 11 carriages.

One of those trains could be up to 26 carriages in length.

-So it's just...

-It's incredible, isn't it?

-It just dwarfs stuff in the UK, really.

-Yeah.

And as a passenger, of course, you don't see all of this.

We are getting a real privileged view up here.

As a passenger, you just come in and out of the station.

But over there, there are maintenance yards,

where all the locomotives are given a locomotive MOT.

There's another load of sidings beyond that,

with all the spare carriages in for those enormous, long trains.

It's funny, we just glimpse that out the window of a train

as you pass, but it's like an iceberg.

-There's so much hidden under the surface.

-Yep.

So much required, in terms of support and logistics,

-to keep this going.

-Yeah.

-TRAIN HORN BLARES

Well, it's a complex system for one very good reason

and that is for safety, to stop trains bashing into each other,

which I think, on the whole, is a good idea.

-Yeah, that is not a good thing, when they hit each other.

-No.

But, of course, it's... Over the years, it's those crashes

and the response to them that's given us our modern safety systems.

-Yep.

-We've made incremental improvements,

we've introduced new technology, and that's how, round the world,

we've managed to get railways running pretty safely nowadays.

But in some parts of India,

what's fascinating, in some parts of rural India,

those historic safety systems have been frozen in time,

and John Sergeant's been exploring some of them to see them in action.

Two trains on the same track,

and there's only one possible outcome.

Disaster.

This stunt was staged in America in 1913.

But in the early days of rail travel,

serious accidents like this were all too common.

This one in Northern India killed 20 people.

At many country stations, local trains use a single track

and more than 100 years ago, a British engineer based in India,

a Mr Neale, perfected a system to make sure

that only one train was on the track at any given moment.

Amazingly, the old system is still being used at this station.

I'm in Palasdari, 70 kilometres east of Mumbai.

This quiet, rural line runs to the village of Koppole

and to ensure there's only ever one train on the line, they have

what's called a token system. MACHINE RINGS

It relies on the transfer of a tiny silver ball.

THEY TALK

Ah, we've got it! THEY LAUGH

-Right, so the ball has now come through, right?

-Uh-huh.

JOHN LAUGHS

'This silver ball is a permit to travel on the line.

'Any driver coming through this station

'needs to have it in his possession before leaving.'

Right, we have the ball. Now we take the ball to the driver.

-Yeah.

-Right, we've got the ball.

'Normally, the station master would do this, but I'm having a go.'

We have to... We have to put the ball...

We have to put the ball in the bag, OK?

Right.

Shall I give it to the driver?

Thank you. Safe journey.

With the ball safely on board, the driver is allowed to set off.

The machine only issues one ball at a time

and then locks shut.

It also sends a signal to its partner machine at Koppole Station...

MACHINE RINGS ..telling it that the line is busy.

MACHINE RINGS

No more balls can now be removed from either machine,

which means that no further trains can enter the track.

It's a guarantee of safety for everyone on board.

Now, I know that this train... HORN BLARES

..I know that this train will not collide with another train

going in the opposite direction,

because the driver has that metal ball.

This particular system was invented by Mr Neale

and is still called Neale's Token System.

At one time, it was being used on more than 10,000 kilometres

of the Indian rail network.

This is one of the very last lines to use it,

carrying thousands of passengers each day.

Now I've reached Koppole Station,

I need to get the ball back into the system,

so that the next train is allowed to travel.

Right, so we've got the pouch.

Yeah?

CROWD CHATTERS OK. Off we go.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-Right, well, we've brought the ball.

-I'm going to put it in the machine.

-Yes.

Put it under the top.

-Under there, OK.

-Yeah.

MACHINE RINGS 'With the ball back in the machine,

'the system unlocks.

'The line is clear and ready for the next train.'

Done.

Token systems like this were only ever suitable

for sections of single track. HORN BLARES

They were installed in the early

and less complicated days of rail travel.

When there were many more trains on different lines

and being moved into sidings,

they needed a more sophisticated system

to make sure that the trains ended up in the right place.

TRACKS CLICK

The answer was to lock together points,

which set the route a train takes

with the signals, which tell the driver it's safe to proceed.

WHIRRING AND CLICKING

Here at Lonavla Freight Yard, 80 kilometres from Mumbai,

they're still using a system that, in the 1860s,

was at the cutting edge of railway technology.

The chief yardmaster, Mr Deshpande, shows me how it works.

-Hello, how are you?

-I am fine, thank you.

-Now, this just looks terrific.

-Mm-hm.

-And this is all mechanical?

-Yes.

'This lever bed controls 48 different points and signals across the yard.'

So when the lever is pulled there,

these rods will then move here, is that right?

-Yes.

-And that will change the points?

-Yes, yes.

-So ask him to pull the lever, let's just see what happens.

-OK.

HE TRANSLATES

PHONE RINGS IN BACKGROUND

-CLICKING

-Mm-hm.

CLICKING

OK?

'Pulling this lever moves a series of metal rods,

'stretching over 100 metres, to change the points.

'Each lever has a number.

'There are set routes, and the team here know the numbers

'that correspond to each of them.'

So what have we got to do? A freight train is going to come out?

HORN BLARES IN BACKGROUND

So what are we doing...?

'I'm setting the route for a freight train

'to join the main line to Mumbai.'

-Pull that one here? OK.

-With both hands, both hands.

-Both hands, all right.

-Uh-huh.

-It's heavy, isn't it?

-Mmm.

Right.

-Ah, yes.

-Yes?

-Yes, it is correctly set now.

OK, what else do we need to pull?

So pull that, right? Pull that first.

-Whoops!

-Mind your fingers here.

-OK.

'The points are set, but to tell the driver he can proceed,

'now I need to set the signals.'

-Now, what about the signal, right?

-Yes.

-OK, where's that?

HE MUTTERS

-Signal.

-39.

-39? OK, right.

-Yeah. Oh, well, that's much easier, isn't it?

-Lights one is easier.

'Pulling this lever operates an electrical switch

'that changes the signal lights.'

Second signal, let's push 27.

27, right. OK.

CLICKING AND CREAKING

-If anybody tried to wind back...

-Yes?

..after lowering the signal to the train, it will not go. You just try.

-OK. I can't, because it's locked.

-Ah, yes.

Yes, that is called interlocking.

-Interlocking?

-Yes. It is...

-And that is for safety?

-Yes.

'Interlocking describes the way the levers are mechanically connected.

'It's physically impossible to pull the wrong lever.'

HORN BLARES

'Two trains cannot be sent onto the same section of line.

'Over the years, thousands of lives have been saved as a result.'

-So, in the yards, the trains aren't moving very fast...

-Yes, there is...

-..and there aren't many of them.

-Mm-hm.

-So you can still use the trusty old system?

-Oh, yes, yes.

It is very... Actually, it is very safe.

Yes. No, I can see it's very safe.

'Watching these systems in operation is like stepping back in time.

'But, surprisingly, the principles behind this old technology

'are still just as relevant today in modern stations.'

HORNS BEEP

At CST in Mumbai, you won't find any lever rooms.

They've been replaced by automated electrical switches.

But these do the same jobs as the levers in Lonavla,

guaranteeing a clear route for each train through the station.

TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT

It's just before 3pm.

Although the pressure's temporarily off,

the smooth running of this place

relies on thousands of well-rehearsed routines.

One staff swap-over has been designed to make sure

that trains can get in and out in under four minutes.

Robert and I are seeing how it works.

So we're making our final approach now into Mumbai CST.

Driver Sajit here is at the controls.

Now, I wanted to show you the really time-dependent activity

that goes on here. This is really important to get these trains

in and out as quickly as possible.

This is one of the standard electric trains on the suburban line,

and there is obviously a driver's cab at the front, as you'd expect,

And there's a guard's van at the back, if you want to call it that.

But because the trains can't turn round,

cos this is a dead-end station, all they do is swap over.

The guard comes in here, and the driver goes up to the other end,

so we're nearly coming to a stop.

I don't know how he does that, that is brilliant.

That's really hard to do that, beautifully done.

Well done, excellent.

So that's it. Dan is up the other end of the platform.

Yes, here I am, at what was the back of the train,

the guard's just getting out now.

And I'm just waiting for the driver who is...

coming up the platform now.

So now all that happens... The train's stopped.

Everything's turned off.

Takes the keys out of the ignition, just like in your car,

and no-one can nick it, he's got the keys, they can't run off with it.

Hello, sir. Good to see you.

The guard's jumped out, this is the new driver arriving now,

he's going to get in, he's going to do some checks,

get his logbook out, turn a couple of switches,

change the destination on the front of the train,

make sure the headlights are working, and then he's good to go.

Just wait for that signal, till it goes yellow, and he's good to go.

The guard has just arrived now,

so the guard is now going to go through his basic safety checks,

just checking everything.

He's getting everything nice for himself. There we go.

Yep, basic safety checks.

So what he will do, at some point, is communicate with the driver

and he will stay in communication with the driver

for the whole journey.

It's all part of the whole safety procedure of the train.

WHISTLE BLOWS

HORN BLARES

And they're off.

So nothing too technologically advanced about that process.

Just well-trained people being in the right place at the right time,

doing the right thing. And off they go.

Not too busy, it's the middle of the day.

As we saw earlier, these trains during rush hour

can get incredibly busy.

But that's not a problem that's unique to Mumbai railways.

The road system, too, here is very overstretched.

Mumbai's traffic problems are notorious.

There are more than 700,000 cars on the roads.

Add into that more than two million public buses, rickshaws

and motorbikes, and you've got a transport nightmare.

To see quite how bad things are on the roads,

I'm making a 16km journey

from the suburb of Kurla to CST.

OK, I'm crossing the road. Hello, right, I'm on.

I'm on it, we're doing it, we're doing it.

Oh, my... OK, stop. We're in.

Hello. Pleased to meet you...

'Taxi driver Surinder Singh is one of around 40,000 cabbies in Mumbai.'

Off we go.

Seatbelt on?

-No.

-No? I'm going to put it on anyway.

How long do you think it's going to take us?

In this peak hour, it takes sometimes one hour,

sometimes it takes two hours or so.

And during monsoon it's very bad, two hours here...

So could be one hour, could be two hours.

-In monsoon, how long...?

-In monsoon, it can take three hours, four hours,

-because Bombay gets flooded.

-Three or four hours?

Oh, yeah, you have to wait patiently.

This journey would take 20 minutes on the train, which is

why more than half of Mumbai's commuters travel by rail.

'This gridlocked traffic is the result of just 8%

'of them taking to the roads, which aren't in great nick.'

-Is this a new road?

-Yeah, this is a new road. See this condition?

This is the worst new road I've...

-See, this is a new road.

-Sack the road builders.

-Yeah, see these are the conditions of the roads.

-This is not even flat.

Yeah, they've not levelled it properly.

Look, not levelled it? I mean, really, that...

My mum could have done a better job.

The government has spent £149 million over the last eight years

trying to improve the roads to cope with the increase in traffic.

But Surinder's not impressed.

-Feels like someone needs to plan it.

-Yeah, plan it properly.

What would you do? If you were the King of Bombay?

If I had been... There's no roads where the... I would have widened

the roads first... and build new bridges, new flyovers.

-But they're doing those things, aren't they, slowly?

-Very, very slow.

It's very slow, very slow.

-Not fast enough for a cab driver?

-No, no.

'There are also huge problems with road safety.

'In 2013, there were 23,500 road accidents in Greater Mumbai

'and nearly 500 deaths.

'That's almost four times as many as in London.'

-So, where are we now?

-This is called Dadar.

-Dadar. And is this halfway?

It's halfway.

'We've been going over half an hour.

'Our average speed is about ten kilometres per hour,

'which compares badly even to central London,

'where it's closer to 15.

'But travelling by road is giving me

'a brilliant view of the evolving landscape of Mumbai.'

-So, this used to be the textile area. Lots of mills.

-Yeah, lots of mills.

-Run by the British.

-And now those mills have disappeared, have they?

Yeah, they've disappeared. Only you can find the chimneys there.

'Dadar used to be an industrial area packed with cotton mills,

'but today, like so much of Mumbai,

'it's being redeveloped to create offices and homes for the rich.'

-A multistorey apartment is coming now.

-Oh, look at that!

How much would it cost to live here?

If I wanted to buy a two-bedroom flat in this developed

suburb in one of these nice apartments -

that looks pretty swish to me, that big high-rise...

More than five gross.

-£500,000?

-Yes, £500,000, yeah.

-Half a million pounds?!

-Million pounds.

Who can afford that here?

Businesspeople are buying, politicians are buying.

Politicians, businesspeople...

Some investors are there.

And how do you feel about these amazing flats that you can't afford?

Actually, we can't think about that, because we cannot afford one.

We can't think about that money.

We're not going to make that much money in our life.

It's not possible for us.

'The average wage in Mumbai is just over £1,000 a year,

'but it's also home to 30 billionaires.'

-If you've got money in Bombay, you've got mega money.

-Mega money.

-Some people have mega money.

-They're minted money.

-They're minted!

Yeah, they're minted money.

Bombay is changing under our noses.

And there we go, a Range Rover.

And to buy a Range Rover or a BMW - in fact, any imported car -

is not the same as in the UK, because here the import duty is

so high that it would cost you, basically, double what it costs us.

'We're now just over eight kilometres from our starting point, Kurla.'

-We have been in the car for over an hour.

-One hour.

-So, how long is it going to take us?

-One day, I did half an hour...

Give me the bad news. Don't worry, you don't have to sugar-coat it.

I'm in this now. Tell me, really, how long do you think it could take?

It will take at least 30 minutes to 40 minutes towards the CST.

Sometimes it can take more, also - 40, 45 minutes.

It's just at this time we can't say anything about the traffic.

-30 or 40 or 50! Indian time.

-Indian time.

SHE LAUGHS Indian time is fluid.

'Travelling by road here is

'just as frustrating as in any other megacity,

'but with another 2,000 new vehicles registered each week,

'it's only going to get worse here in Mumbai.'

-Here we are. This is CST now.

-That's quite some journey!

-Yes.

I recognise this beautiful building.

OK, sir, if you could stop the meter...

-Yes.

-269 rupees, which is £2.69.

It took us an hour and 35 minutes, but we made it!

-Yes, made it.

-Thank you!

Bye-bye.

So, that journey then cost £2.69 in the taxi, but the same journey

would have cost 10p on the train, so it feels like a bit of a no-brainer.

-I'd get the train.

-You'd think, but there are a lot of people in this

city of 17 million who have a lot of money.

And that's the middle classes. And this middle class is growing

all over India, and they can quite easily

afford to use a taxi, and they do, because it's just more comfortable.

'And let me tell you,

'comfort is in short supply here on rush hour trains.

'This is me tussling to get on board one morning.'

It's a fight! What is happening?!

SHE SHRIEKS

I'm on! We made it!

'It was the same story for me.'

-HE LAUGHS

-Ow! Ow!

I think the one thing I'm not worried about is falling over.

'So I'm keen to see what a carriage looks like without quite

'so many people on board.'

-I didn't even realise there were seats until just now.

-Let's hop on.

-This is a men's only carriage.

-Right.

Women are allowed on, they just choose not to travel.

So you generally wouldn't go on this. But you're on!

-Lots of places to hold on.

-Hundreds of places to hold on.

-You'd need to.

And the fans, I have to say, saved me when I was squashed in here.

Actually standing by the door, or, if you sit... Let's have a seat.

-OK.

-The best seat in the house is that one right there.

-Oh,

so right next to the window, or there.

-Yes, where this gentleman here is.

-He's got the right seat.

You've got the right seat, sir, right by the window, nice and comfortable.

When I took a train once, I was sitting there

and a woman was eyeballing me to say, "When you get off, I'm getting on,"

because that's the tactics they use to bag a seat.

So she wasn't trying to get your seat, it was just for when you left.

That was the thing when I was squashed.

I was sort of standing about there, absolutely squashed in.

The atmosphere round me was friendly.

Everyone was grinning and saying hello and waving. It was nice,

even though you were scrunched together.

And I just thought if that same situation happened

on a commuter train in England,

there'd be a lot of passive-aggressive tutting,

people would be shaking their copies of the Telegraph.

"Grr, move down the carriage!" You know?

Here, it seemed incredibly friendly.

Well, things CAN get extreme, and they did in January 2015.

It was the first day back to work,

and you could say there was a major problem in the control room.

They had an electrical issue and there were severe delays,

which meant that the trains came to a standstill.

-NEWS REPORT:

-Shortly after 7am Friday morning.

Train services from CST to Diva in suburban Mumbai were stalled

due to a technical snag,

leaving office goers stranded for more than five hours.

ANGRY SHOUTING

Now, 16,000 people rioted in the suburb of Diva.

They took out to the streets, they blocked the tracks,

they injured a driver and they damaged ten trains.

So it shows you, when things go wrong here,

Indians can get very angry indeed.

Those riots were very unusual,

but perhaps because of that, they certainly were big news

around here, and many people took them to be symptomatic

of a more general frustration with how the railways sometimes worked.

Now, the man who until recently was in charge of dealing with that

frustration is the former divisional railway manager.

Mr Nigam, thanks for joining us.

You used to be in charge of this place, till early 2015.

What was it like putting up with occasionally quite angry commuters?

If you have to run 2,000 trains every day and you carry more than

four million passengers every day, it's a tough ask.

Mumbaikars, our commuters,

are very emotionally attached to suburban trains.

I mean, they relate to its performance

and its activities in a very emotional manner.

So there are chances of emotional outbursts.

If I were you, I'd get really annoyed, because most of the time

the train works well and commuters get to work,

and then, when it doesn't, they all blame you.

They never thank you when times are good, do they?

No, I mean, whoever is in the service sector, it is

the customer who's the king, and whatever he says, you have to take

it to a logical conclusion,

and that's what we are there for, you know.

When you were the boss here,

what were the main complaints that would land on your desk?

First of all is relating to the overcrowding.

Overcrowding is a very serious issue, because especially

at intermediate stations it's very difficult to get on the trains.

You know, for that we need to run longer trains.

There's also an issue of modernisation of the network.

People would like more and more amenities.

They would like to see escalators at stations,

they would like to have better ticket vending machines,

they would like to have better trains,

they would like to have air conditioning in the trains.

And the third issue is with regard to disruptions.

They would...they would not tolerate any disruptions.

I mean, I find that the Mumbaikar, an average Mumbaikar,

he's never satisfied with the service that we offer,

but when he goes and leaves the city

and, you know, when he's gone to meet a relative in another city,

-he would praise the system no end.

-Yeah.

It sounds like we commuters are the same everywhere in the world.

You know, railway jobs...world over

which are dealing with operations,

you know, because railway operations are a 24-hour exercise,

are, you know, very engaging jobs.

It is said that, you know, you can't ride the tiger for too long.

But, you know, when you are over here,

you have to shoulder the responsibility

because suburban network is the lifeline of the city.

There are four billion passengers

who look up to you for your performance.

Thank you very much.

Now, this place can feel, I'm sure you would agree with this,

insatiable, unstoppable at times.

But there are three hours every night when the trains fall silent.

They're still. And we had a look around the station

during those magical night-time hours.

It's 10pm.

And the station is winding down for the day.

The suburban platforms are quiet.

But in the control room, it's business as usual.

There are still eight long-distance services to send on their way.

UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS

The pressure is on for the platform staff.

Come on, man. Come on. There you go.

Porters hurry fresh fish and other local produce onto the trains

just in time for their departure slots.

Worth £6 million to the local economy,

it's essential that these goods are on sale

at markets across the country by morning.

Once the last intercity service leaves the station at 11.45,

the focus in the control room turns to the suburban platforms.

77220.

Midnight strikes.

And the city's last travellers are heading for the last trains home.

The final service leaves at 12.45.

Last suburban local, are you ready to depart from the CST?

There won't be another until 4am.

SOOTHING MUSIC PLAYS

But once the passenger trains have departed,

the control room has just three hours to do the overnight housekeeping.

This is their only window for fixing anything that's gone wrong today

to ensure that tomorrow will run smoothly.

Safety workers are given permission

to move onto the empty tracks to do repairs.

Other trains are repositioned and shunted into place.

At 2.20, one rather unusual train is given permission to run.

The Muck-Special is used to remove

10,000 tonnes of building waste and household refuse

that threatens to block the sewers by the railway tracks.

Picked and packed during the day, the workers, called Muck-Pickers,

return at night to load 3,000 bags of waste onto this train.

This is back-breaking work

for pay of £2.50 a day.

If left to build up, this rubbish would block the drains,

and when the monsoon rains arrive, this would mean instant flooding,

cancelled trains and disaster on the lines.

Overnight maintenance completed,

the controllers gear up for the start of the morning shift.

Trains are waiting, the tracks are clear

and the drivers head to their services.

The all clear is given for the 4am departure.

And the first train of today's 1,500 services sets off.

Another day in Mumbai on the world's busiest railway begins.

This station is such an important part of downtown, noisy Mumbai.

It has a crucial place in the heart of Mumbaikars.

But it is like all these complex systems.

The more you understand how all the parts work together,

the more you begin to really appreciate it.

And I think it's amazing

that they get so many people on so many trains every day.

If you're on a train that's stuck and not going anywhere,

you'd probably end up being a bit moody.

But I think that is the point. Because there are big problems here.

The passengers feel like they're on edge.

They are crushed to bits every morning and every evening.

And they all know that even a small problem can lead to massive delays.

It just feels like there isn't any wiggle room in the system,

there's no contingency.

It's like an intense relationship, filled with love and hate.

They love it when it works, they hate it when it doesn't.

Tonight, we've immersed you

in the extraordinary daily life of this station.

Next time, in our final visit,

I see what the future holds for this megacity's rail network.

Ah! Air conditioned, spacious.

I don't get nutted every time I move.

Forget leaves, try floods on the line.

We find out how they keep trains running through the monsoon.

And I meet one of the heroes of the 2008 terror attack.

Anita goes out on the line with the teams keeping the network safe.

KLAXON BLARES

Oh, we're on the move now.

For a minute, I forgot I was in the middle of two live railway lines.

And we reflect on the affection Mumbaikars have for their railway.

Bombay is whatever it is because of its beautiful railway lines.

Railways are the lifeline of Mumbai.

That's all still to come.

Thanks for joining us here in Mumbai. See you next time.

-Bye!

-Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.