Station spotting!

It is unlikely that many have heard of Nawandgi. But there is a railway station there — and, depending on where you are coming from, you are either entering the State of Andhra Pradesh or leaving it.

Till now, one knew Mahbubnagar to be a small town in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. But clicking on the orange dot corresponding to it on the map at http://railwisdom.railyatri.in/ tells you that the Kohinoor diamond is believed to have originated somewhere in this region.

At Thrissur station in Kerala, getting in from the east or west entrance is convenient for those with cars — there is ample parking space available.

At Sudsar, Rajasthan, a unique combination of dal badas and rabri is sold on the railway platform.

And did you know that NEPA Nagar, the town with a paper factory, gets its name from the National Environment Protection Authority?

Browsing through Rail Wisdom, where information of the above kind is given “by the people and for the people”, as its tagline says, can be a useful or pleasurable pastime depending on whether you are a traveller or a trivia lover. An offshoot of the start-up railyatri.in, it aims to be a practical guide for railway travellers.

Railyatri.in earlier collaborated with the Indian Railways to provide information on the location of trains on the move, with its RailRadar facility. But the people at the start-up realised there were more questions travellers wanted answered, and came up with Rail Wisdom.

Train journey is a pleasure all its own. To sit back and watch the countryside go by, discover places we never knew existed, and peek into lives and lifestyles we might never encounter again, is a thrill that builds up as the voyage unfolds. There is plenty to temper the excitement, though — how to reach or leave the station, the state of the waiting and retiring rooms, whether women are permitted to use the latter, the kind of food you can expect to find. Sharing an experience brings it alive again, and it could be of immense use to others — so, why not spread the word?

This thought prompted Manish Rathi and railyatri.in’s two other co-founders to create Rail Wisdom, where information is crowdsourced from travellers. “There is so much knowledge from people at the ground level, we wanted to capture that and share it,” says Rathi. There are dos, don’ts, and did-you-know nuggets on about 8,000 locations in India.

The information falls broadly into six categories - amenities, food, access and exit, transportation to and from the station, useful contact numbers (the station master’s, for instance), and miscellaneous. “We are now looking at adding information about specific trains - whether they tend to be crowded, at what point, when to expect a big rush,” says Rathi, explaining that information is uploaded after checking for accuracy and propriety. His team also adds to the information, if necessary.

Up next is the National RailYatri Alert Service for travellers on events that could affect their travel plans. These include details of special trains, cancellations, delays, accidents and diversions among others. To get alerts, travellers should enter their travel/ ticket details on my-NRAS, a Web site they can access on mobile phones.

Currently, about 15,000 people use the Web site every day. There are over 6,000 ‘wisdoms’ on view, and about 2,000 waiting to be reviewed. There are plans for a mobile app, besides presence on Twitter and Facebook.

The site is still being built and navigating it is a bit clumsy now. Zooming is slow and jerky, ads obscure the search box, and returning from the ‘wisdom’ page to the home page is not straightforward.

But it is an interesting endeavour. Apart from its utility value, it can be a tour guide and geography and history lessons all rolled into one. And don’t be surprised if you find yourself yearning or even planning to visit many of these unknown and obscure destinations some day!

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