Bijoy's love letter to steam locomotives

I have experienced TGVs in France and Shinkansens in Japan – they are without any doubt, excellent, amazing modes of rail transport. And very fast too. Yet, even today, when someone mentions train travel, my mind wafts back some five decades.

The first memories of travel for me had to be the Trivandrum – Quilon trips. My father used to work in Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram now) and my mother hailed from Quilon (Kollam now). The distance was just 60 odd kilometres and for most holidays, festivals and long weekends, we would travel this distance – mostly by train or else by state transport-run buses. I loved the train journeys despite the fact that it took forever to cover the distance. Honestly, I didn’t care.

The drama associated with travelling in a steam locomotive is without parallel. The ‘shuttle’ service between TVM and Quilon was operated by a steam train though it gave way to modern diesels eventually. ‘Shuttle’ service meant everything happened in slow motion. Shuttles gave way to everything else – Mail and Express trains and at times, even goods trains.

So, you reached the station and waited on the platform for the shuttle to come from the yard. It invariably came late and the passengers who paid a pittance to travel in it were not bothered at all. People seemed to have all the time to board the train – no one ran, no one hurried. The glorious steam engine came slowly hauling ten odd bogies. The engine would already be huffing and puffing, and even when it was stationary, it made noises, let some steam out and sent a puff of white smoke into the air and so on. Now, this was a proper ‘machine’, and it looked and behaved like one. The platform smelt of coal as it rolled to a stop.

Father would always allow me to occupy a window seat. Some time later, after every other train had left various platforms, the Kollam shuttle would blow the long whistle signalling its imminent departure from the Trivandrum Terminus (the line was stretched to Kanyakumari later on and Trivandrum lost its ‘Terminus’ status).

The engine would huff and puff a little more and the steam outlets got busier with time. Did I tell you that the shuttle stopped at all railway stations enroute and even for all the level crossings too? Then it would stop on parallel tracks for faster trains to go by. The sensation of a fast train passing so close to you when you have been stationary for a long time needs to be experienced to be believed.

So even before it left the long platform, it would start slowing for the first station. Not kidding, the shuttle loved to stop more often than go. It felt like it was going fast though when it was moving. And even faster when it was blaring the whistle.

When it would move fast, it smelt of burning coal and some fragments from the furnace up ahead would reach the corners of your eyes. It was mother’s job to blow hard into my eye to get these bits out. The noise, the whistle, the coal fragments and the smell, made the journey more eventful than it actually was.

Inside the cabin, the first tea seller would arrive, followed by a blind singer (I always wondered how he alighted from the moving train at stations) with an assistant who would drum on his stomach. The latter made me feel bad, always. My father would give 10 paise to the singer – probably because he sang tunes popular during the communist upheaval in Kerala.

Then the smell of burnt peanut shells would fill the cabin as a man pushed a cane bag with a heap of peanuts kept warm by burning charcoal. Father would diligently buy three paper cones. Everyone would happily litter the floor with the shells. Not us though. Soon after, once all were through with the peanuts, a little boy would appear and sweep and clean the floor, and demand 10 paise – which my dad would reluctantly give.

My father could tell which place the train was passing by and which station was approaching by listening to the strained noises from the engine. And by the smells that wafted in – of decayed coconut husk (for making ropes) from the backwaters and the inimitable smell of days-old fish from wharfs. After stopping at all stations, the shuttle would finally reach Kollam and the aroma of burnt cashewnut would overpower everything else. It signalled the end of the journey too.

With a little cajoling, my father would allow me to take a closer look at the engine before we left. There she would be, in all her glory, still emitting smoke and steam and somehow looking happy – like a long-distance runner after finishing a marathon. Take that! Shinkansen!