A pictorial journey with Indian Railways

Indian railways has many things to claim first as it covers a big country all across it's physical and social vastness, carrying and uniting them all in a way.


Tom Brown in his train poem 'Orchestra' has written that, "Walking forward through the crowded carriage, I pass an orchestra of different lives".
(poem ©Tom Brown/page thankfully shared from:http://allpoetry.com/poems/about/Train)

My train journey this September brought me up experiences of collective chorus, lives so varied, so different; yet so common, so known.

Some pictures and some notes all along with, makes it all to tell a story of this collective conscience through the Indian railways carriages.



Morning rays spreading light on the road of Charbagh railway station in Lucknow, U.P., India.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6986749/

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6986386/

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6970613/

Journey ends, carriage awaits; Red brick frontage, arches, verandah, domes, minars; Harmonising peace settles inside.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6969446/

Lucknow, U.P., India, City railway station

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6969456/

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6958011/

A train crossing inter-state boundary (Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh states of India) through hills and thick forest, with zigzag sideways twist, scattering light of the evening sun, carrying so many lives in it's bogies aspiring for their individual stations ending.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6958035/

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6963108/

Train was running. Just near to the open door, a lady was sitting on the bare floor, She was morose and oblivious to her surrounding and the speed of the train. Evening sun on the western horizon was lighting her left face. Who knows? What was on her mind? She sat there as expressionless.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6963085/

A train window provides vivid visuals, fast changing, receding in opposite direction of the movement. This picturesque look from the train window in particular is so natural as if it was a painting framed in the train window itself, and soon it passed so swiftly.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6969254/

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6968996/

Heavy train engine with thumping sound and clattering wheels, excites all on a vibrating platform, waiting to board on, mostly the children. Once inside the bogie compartment, their excitement gradually comes to contentment and sort of introspection returns as they are in thought and as if they have left something behind....

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6957333/

Speeding train at the dawn break, fleeting tracks and side views from the train window moving behind, like a musical ensemble - everything seems in rhythm and get going.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6956815/

A train halting for a while on the platform for the passengers to get down, to start a day with a new morning.

©Anjani Kumar Tripathi/Indian Railways

http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/6956696/

A train leaving passengers on their destination station, again leaves for it's onward journey, while sun rises in the east, invokes simile to our own lives, as to move ever onward and forward.

More train picture stories by the author:
Morning at Ambikapur railway station
Colonel Barog: tall upright man of Barog tunnel
Romance of Indian rail in hilly terrain of Chhattisgarh state in India
Train through the hill
Hill call
National Rail Museum, India