Just as I set out to write this column, I get a press release from travel portal HolidayIQ that says a survey it did finds that 83 per cent of travellers want clean trains. This is top on the wish list tourists have, the other major ones being wi-fi connectivity and garbage-free cities. Interesting, this desire for cleanliness and the lack of it! About a couple of weeks ago, I boarded the Coromandel Express at Vijayawada on a seven-hour journey to Chennai.

For a change, I was travelling in AC first class and was hoping for nothing more than a restful journey.

That, in my scheme of things as I’m sure in yours, includes not worrying about the state of the toilet and such other aspects.

This journey was an eye-opener. I haven’t seen such a filthy train in a long time.

Whither value for money? Less premium sections on other trains have been cleaner. I have long stopped buying food from the pantry car on trains; they are often close to the bathrooms. This train held other horrors. The bedroll doled out to the passengers was smelly. The sheets were a pristine white (!) but contained hair. The bathrooms were dry, there was even some soap in the dispenser, but teeming with tiny cockroaches. There was no trace of coffee in the coffee the train attendant brought around periodically to sell. We didn’t know our compartment had had a dustbin till the cleaners came in and extracted it from deep beneath the berth and asked for a tip. We hadn’t known where to deposit the stuff that we needed to discard, so we had kept it in our bags.

The rubbish stayed safely ensconced in our handbags. The dustbin was so dirty that we didn’t want to touch it with hand or foot. At the end of the journey, an attendant, and then yet another, came by to ask for “bakshish”. One of them was the person who had handed out the bedrolls and the other, the person who cleaned the train.

Why, we demanded, when everything was so filthy? Well, they couldn’t help it, they only handed out the bedrolls that were “laundered” by someone else, and they were doing us a service by cleaning the train, they said. With reluctance and irritation, we tipped them and started grumbling about the state of affairs.

Make bedrolls optional “How can we get clean sheets when the Railways pays the cleaners a pittance to wash them?” said a co-passenger. Someone in the business had told him so, he said, explaining that the tenders floated by the Government for this task force the bidders’ hand to manage this dirty linen at low rates somehow.

Maybe the Railways should think of making the bedrolls optional. That way we save a little on the fare, and expose ourselves to fewer layers of dirt.

This year, the Railways conducted a survey of consumer preferences in this matter. A release from the Press Information Bureau says aspects pertaining to cleanliness, hygiene, colour, fabric, size and design preferences, willingness to pay are part of it. The Railways has signed an MoU with the National Institute of Fashion Technology to work on quality and design of the bedrolls.

There have also been reports of disposable bedrolls being provided for a price. Maybe that would be a better idea. As for the other problems, just some effective cleaning solutions and plenty of water plus a willingness to clean frequently should solve most of the problems. And, of course, we need to be responsible passengers and ensure we clean up after ourselves.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW