Indian Railways trains were longer than I had imagined

While walking through the outskirts of Malda, a town in eastern India, I stopped in front of a railway crossing. The gate had come down—clearly, a train was approaching. Soon, the heavy rumble of an engine grew louder, and through a plume of black smoke emerged a train of Indian Railways. The locomotive at the front bore the name Jamalpur, and its long line of carriages slowly clattered past before my eyes.

Yet it seemed endless. No matter how long I waited, the train refused to finish passing, and the barrier stayed firmly shut. The driver, I imagined, was long gone by now, his calm expression already fading into memory. In India, time moves differently. The clock’s hands and the cows on the road both seem to proceed at the same unhurried pace.

Indian Railways boasts one of the largest rail networks in the world, employing around 1.4 million people—making it the ninth-largest organization on the planet. Like a miniature version of the nation itself, it is a vast web of people and tracks somehow working in concert. Delays and stoppages are so routine that punctuality feels almost unnatural; when a train actually arrives on time, it’s regarded as a small miracle.

Malda on Google Map

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