Letters: The railway lifeline

Apropos Sanjeev Sanyal's article "Bring back the Railways!" (April 8), it was shocking to read the assumption that people are avoiding travelling by Indian Railways wherever other alternatives are available. As a country with about 350 million middle-class people and with some 40 per cent people travelling on a regular basis, it is unthinkable to visualise that the railways is dispensable for Indians.

We have Durontos running at convenient timings. We run festival specials and extra trains, whereas our ancestors (read British Railways) in their own country stop train operations on Boxing Day or Christmas. How is it that the nation has missed the Indian Railways' journey to Kashmir, through the Himalayas, and the picturesque railway station at Srinagar with its aesthetic woodwork?

The railways boasts a passenger reservation system (PRS) that is the largest-networked PRS in the world and has even won the prime minister's e-governance award. It oversees a daily traffic of two million passengers. You can also track your train online or on your smartphone through the National Train Enquiry System. The list of achievements is endless and then, to say that the Indian Railways has not changed over the past 60 years is too much to swallow.

Kalpana Dube, Lucknow

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