My Railway Journey
I joined Indian Railways on 11th April, 1983 as an Assistant Mechanical Engineer (a probationer) and reported at South Eastern Railway headquarters located in Kolkata at Garden Reach.
Our appointment letter had mentioned that we had to report to the General Manager (GM) South Eastern Railway. Soon reality dawned on us, that the de facto GM as far as we probationers were concerned, was an Assistant Personnel Officer (Gazetted). He verified our papers and soon dispatched us to Kharagpur (West Bengal) where Indian Railways’ biggest workshop was located and which was to be our headquarters during the two-year-long probation period.
Garden Reach was across the River Hubli with Howrah station on the other side, where I had dismounted the train having boarded the previous day at Delhi station.
I had resigned from my job at National Thermal Power Corporation, taking a hair cut in my remuneration, to join Indian Railways. The results of Indian Engineering Services exams which were to be taken for joining the Railways and other government departments were beyond my wildest dreams. To get selected to the Railways one had to be among the top 10-20 candidates.
I had graduated from MITS Gwalior, an engineering college managed by a trust with members nominated by Scindia the Ex Maharaja of Gwalior state. In the ranking of engineering colleges, its place was in the lower-half of the bottom-half (the top-half being occupied by the IITs, Regional Engineering Colleges, BITS Pilani/Mesra, Roorkee etc.).
With this background it was extremely surprising for me that I had stood first in the UPSC ranking list with my colleagues from the IITs, Roorkee, Regional Engineering Colleges trailing behind me. For a man from a humble background, it was nothing less than a Noble Prize. My success was celebrated not only by me but by my entire college and town.
Joining the Railways was my dream and I had accomplished the same with flying colours. The first two years during which probationers were given basic lessons in management were spent at Railway Staff college at Vadodara and visiting various workshops, production units and other establishments. Those years were full of excitement and passed in a jiffy. We made new friends, got to see and feel the Railways and in the process the vast expanse of our great country as well.
The experience was thrilling, and up on exchanging notes with our friends who had preferred to join other government departments, other industries or had decided to pursue higher studies, we felt our choice was vastly superior.
In October 1984 news of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came, which shook the nation. We didn’t know at the time whether it was on account of this catastrophic event or some other development but our training period of two years was curtailed and we were given marching orders to our respective railway zones to occupy working posts.
On account of my higher rank, I was successfully posted to Central Railway, which was my choice too. At that time my hometown of Gwalior fell under the jurisdiction of this railway (presently it is in North Central Railway) I was posted as Assistant Works Manager in the century-old locomotive workshop at Parel in central Mumbai.
Suddenly I found that the posting has snatched my boyhood from me as a vast army of staff and supervisors would report to me, some of whom were older than my father who also happened to be a Class-2 officer in the office of the Accountant General, Madhya Pradesh, at Gwalior. It took me a while to adjust to them addressing me as “Sir” as is the culture of addressing one’s superior in the government.
I was in charge of giving periodical over haul to Diesel and Steam locomotives. These locomotives were the backbone of Indian Railways’ fleet at the time. Later on, I occupied posts of Divisional Mechanical Engineer, Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer, Chief Engineer, Divisional Railway Manager, Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer and General Manager at different geographical locations across India.
I saw the transformation of the Railways during this period, with Steam & Diesel locomotives giving way to Electric traction, wooden sleepers to concrete sleepers, mechanical signalling to electronic signalling and plain bearing-vacuum braked rolling stock to roller bearing-air braked stock.
My assignments took me to the nooks and corners of the country. I had postings in Kharagpur (West Bengal), Mumbai, Bhusaval, Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh), Perambur (Tamil Nadu), Guwahati (Assam) and Hajipur (Bihar) in a career spanning over more than thirty-eight years. I must say that the excitement and thrill of the Railways continued till my last day in service on 30th June, 2021.
During this period the Railways became my 2nd family apart from the biological family that was gifted by the Almighty.
Post retirement also, my interest in the Railways has not abated. Any event connected with the Railways still gives me the same level of thrill and excitement as I used to experience in my working years. I was one of the few Railway men who never opted for any deputation outside the Indian Railways. Even on foreign assignments I went as an Indian Railway man.
The Railways helped me in acquiring world class management education from globally renowned institutes like HEC, Paris, France and CMU, Pittsburg, USA. We supplied products and services to foreign countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh etc.
The saying, “Once a Railway man, always a Railway man,” holds entirely true in my case.
