With a 20 hour average delay, the New Jalpaiguri Express is the queen among late-running trains.
Shine Jacob reports from New Jalpaiguri.
NJP or New Jalpaiguri, a familiar railway junction for most Darjeeling regulars, is also a transit point for travelling to many north eastern states, Nepal and even Bhutan.
But this journey to NJP, next to Siliguri in West Bengal, aboard the New Jalpaiguri Superfast Express -- the most delayed train over the past six months -- was more experiential than touristy.
Just when this reporter reached NJP in 39 hours (against less than tne 28 hours scheduled travel time), there was an announcement at the station—the return Super Fast Express would start seven- and-a-half hours late.
The real story, however, is about the long travel, covering some 1,500 km, which often takes as much as 20 hours extra on this train.
The start itself was faulty, well late by some four-and-a-half hours from New Delhi on July 22.
"Only God can tell you when this train will reach Jalpaiguri," the driver of 12524 warned a passenger beforehand.
At 3 in the afternoon, when anxious passengers looked around for the train, Ashish Kumar, a bookseller at platform number 13 in New Delhi railway station, said, "it is yet to come from New Jalpaiguri, though it was expected to arrive at 12.10 pm today. In winters, it gets delayed further."
The old fans were not of much help in humid Delhi weather, making the wait till 7.45 pm even longer.
The Sunday disappointment was complete with the promised free food onboard delayed trains nowhere in sight.
Even paid food was difficult to come by on this train passing through four states.
The official waiters in uniform could be spotted only three or four times in AC tier compartment during the entire journey.
Those who had downloaded IRCTC's 'food on track' mobile application were also in a soup. The app showed food would be available the next day as the train was late.
"There is no food on time. Even air conditioner was not working in the third AC coaches for an initial half an hour," said Ganesh Tripathi, an LIC agent from Bihar's Vaishali.
Not just the food, even the cleaning service was delayed.
Since the train started late, it got cleaned 16 hours later at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. Till then, the newly installed bio-toilets remained clogged.
Complaints about this train have found their way to the micro blogging site Twitter as well. Tax payers' money is being spent on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, but no initiative has been taken to clean the coaches, an angry passenger from Delhi, Asif, tweeted, while tagging railway minister Piyush Goyal and Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
In fact, Asif's tweet and numerous complaints from other passengers forced the Railways to clean the train at Gorakhpur station around 11.30 am on the second day of the journey.
According to independent data for the last six months from the analysis platform RailYatri, New Jalpaiguri Express is the most delayed train in India taking an average of 20 hours extra to cover its 1,500 km distance.
Under normal conditions, this distance is to be covered in 27-and-a-half hours.
"I understand that it is a weekly train, but for such a long distance, they should at least have a pantry. I had an official commitment at New Jalpaiguri on Monday evening. Seems it is not going to work out," said Siliguri’s Sudeep Saha, an employee of the North Bengal University.
Anger and helplessness came together.
Shatrughan Paswan, an office employee at Maulana Azad Medical College, had got a call from home saying his mother had been hospitalised.
"I was supposed to reach Muzzafarpur at 10.10 am, but I'm still on train even after 7.45 pm," Paswan said, adding that had the train not halted for about half an hour each at Teknewas, Chhapra, Sonpur and Ghoshawar, he could have reached the hospital much earlier.
An official from the Hajipur division tried to explain that between Ghoshawar and Muzzafarpur, there is a single line stretch where doubling work is going on.
"We have to go slow and also give way to other trains. Hence, this sort of delay is happening. We are also helpless as the work is vital for the region's train infrastructure," the official said.
As the train slowly got closer to its destination, Rajkumar Varma, a businessman from Gorakhpur, vented out his disappointment over the delay despite it being the lifeline for many.
When contacted, a Northern Railway official said there were many operational issues such as ongoing track renewal and maintenance work along the route.
Issues related to rakes also resulted in delays.
In addition, officials cited traffic management issues across zones such as Gorakhpur, Hajipur and Allahabad.
Not convinced with such explanations, Geeta Devi, a regular passenger on this train, asked, "Why don't they make it a local train? It is being held up to give way to even local passenger trains."
It's early morning, 6.30 am on July 24 to be precise, as the train enters Jalpaiguri station, a busy hub connecting many important destinations.
The loco pilot could not contain his dry humour. "You are lucky sir. The train is late by only 12 hours today."
