Indian Railways is making a lot of money in profits (Over 25,000 crore rupees last year). Now the question is what is done with this money? Unfortunately as far as basic infrastructure is concerned, nothing much is done.  In fact, travelling by any of the general compartments will be a “lesson in torture”! What is more infuriating is the fact that they are spending huge amounts in gigantic plasma and lcd displays. To majority of commuters these are useless because many of the displays are used for advertising and the ones which displays train timings are almost always incorrect!

Last week I was travelling from Trivandrum to Trichur and the waiting room in Trivandrum railway station had a huge HDTV display supposed to show train timings. Someone in railways had downloaded something nasty on the Windows machine which powers the display and is infected with Brontok virus.

This display is located in a “luxury waiting room”(??) which is air conditioned and charges Rs. 10 per passenger for 2 hours. Even if you have a first class train ticket which costs more than first class flight ticket(!) you need to pay Rs. 10

Talking about basic infrastructure, the trivandrum railway station is the “most advanced” station in kerala and is supposed to be at “international level” but doesn’t have enough chairs in platforms for passenger to sit.

I guess what they mean by international is either “pakistan” or “somalia”.