Ups and downs in the Railways

Up the Down Staircase 

The Story of the Indian Railways  

Abraham Jacob 

Vanathi Pathippagam

302 pages; Rs 250

There are several services in the Indian Railways.  Among these, the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) and the Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRES) ought to be the most important (though this isn’t necessarily the case always), because they deal directly with the running of trains. Abraham Jacob, the author of this book, retired from the IRTS as Additional Member (Railway Board), before moving to the Railway Claims Tribunal. The book has an intriguing title — Up the Down Staircase. As explanation, the publisher’s note, tells us, “The intriguing title of this book is significant in more than one respect. On the one hand, it reminds us of the numerous staircases going up and down in our railway stations and, on the other suggests that life itself is full of staircases, some leading us up and some others bringing us down.”  That may be and we get the general idea. But in the English language, that turn of phrase is most peculiar. In addition, with somewhat shoddy production quality and bad copy-editing, the publisher hasn’t done justice to the book.

Nor does the cover do the book much credit.  It has a picture of a steam locomotive hauling a passenger coach at a bend on the railway track. The original was a beautiful photograph. There is beautiful green vegetation at the back and the metre gauge steam locomotive YG4367 (made in 1967 by Telco) is emerging from a tunnel at Dyang railway station and advancing over a culvert on the Badarpur-Lumding run. As depicted on the cover, the tunnel, the culvert, the vegetation, the passenger coaches and the name of the station are all missing. I have no idea why the publisher decided to do this. Perhaps he wanted to avoid giving a picture credit. It hasn’t worked. YG4367 is such a famous locomotive that the original is known.

The book has a chapter on counting wagons. “A very humorous traffic officer used to say that if one went to meet a traffic officer, he would only be in one of three states; he would invariably be counting wagons, going to start counting wagons or had just finished his first round of counting wagons… Indian Railway before the days of Gujral [Chairman Railway Board, 1980-83] was a wagon oriented system which meant that all stations were opened for goods booking and the unit of booking was a wagon… Consequently, once the wagon had been loaded it had to be collected and brought into a yard, where the wagons were sorted out to form direction wise and yard wise trains… The early seventies were also a period of compounding complications."  

“The Railway had started introducing eight wheeler wagons with centre buffer couplings.  When these wagons were to be inducted, it was done with the clear commitment that they would run as rakes and would be dealt with distinctly from all other four wheeler wagons… The eight wheelers which were to run as rakes quickly got disintegrated into the general pool of wagons…  All this called for more and more refined number taking and wagon counting.”  I have given you this quote to illustrate Mr Jacob’s sense of humour.

The book follows an autobiographical track, beginning with induction and ending with “a final word”.  The 27 chapters are divided into five parts -- initial years, early years, middle years, later years and final years.  Broadly speaking, in the author’s perception, the steam years were wonderful and the best period was with Mohinder Singh Gujral as Chairman, Railway Board. After that, it was decline and deluge. Along that autobiographical track, you also get a sense of the evolution of the Indian Railways, which is the reason there is a faux title, “The Story of the Indian Railways” on the cover.  

Mr Jacob had his trials and tribulations, the ups and downs of the staircase. When he unleashes his venomous sarcasm on his superiors, he is devastating. But I should warn you that as the book proceeds, unless you are inordinately interested in the railways, particularly in the IRTS, you may find it boring. 

Mr Jacob faced many difficult bosses, such as his first DS (Divisional Superintendent, now known as DRM). “That man went on to be a General Manager. He still lives in the reflected glory of his youngest son who became a world champion. He still remains an arrogant, opinionated tyrant, pompous and loud. He continued to dock me and my career till his retirement, that is also part of the tale.”  

Retirement as GM, Southern Railways, youngest son, world champion — the name is obvious. Had bosses not found Mr Jacob so difficult, he would probably have retired as a Member of the Railway Board. There are several chapters that transcend the personal and have insights about railway policy — dishonesty and falsification of records, safety and corruption. Perhaps reflective of his own career, the humour in the first part of the book yields to bitterness in the latter. A pity, to add to that of a bad editor and publisher.