Train to Calcutta (Kolkata)

     I had a reservation in a 1AC, or Air-Conditioned First Class, sleeper car. My car number was H1 on the Rajdhani Express train 12302 from Delhi to Kolkata (which I'm going to keep referring to by its old name, Calcutta). My car--or "bogie" as they say in India--is pictured above. As you might gather, first class in this context is not luxury except in the sense that it is far removed from the chaos of the unreserved, open-window cars.

    It would be a pleasure in January in northern India to have open, or at least openable, windows, but this train (of at least 20 "bogies") had only AC sleeper cars. 1AC has compartments on one side, narrow corridor on the other, like old-style European compartment trains. Each compartment accommodates 4, with a pair of opposing bunkbeds. Here is the corridor and my side of the compartment:

    

    The bunk beds don't make very good seats during the day, but the Indians seem to like sitting cross-legged on them, or lounging sideways. You get space in exchange for comfort.
    In the next class down (2AC), there are no closable compartments; same pairs of opposing 2-high bunk beds and other 2-high bunks along the other car wall. In 3AC, it's the same as 2AC, except all the bunks are three high. The Rajdhani Express train was all 1AC, 2AC, and 3AC cars.
    An amenity in 1AC was that food was provided, delivered on fold-up tables by the car attendants. The arrival of the table heralded the approaching food:

    (You can see the folded-up tables stored in the corridor). The food was not very good, and I wish I had taken the open of ordering food on my phone, delivered to the station stops along the way by participating local restaurants. One surprise to me was that Indians like their Corn Flakes served with HOT milk.

    When the train left the Delhi station, I had the full compartment to myself. Two or three hours in, on the 18 hour trip (I think in the city of Kanpur?), the rest of the compartment was filled with a family of three: a mother a father, and their teenaged son, all headed to Calcutta. This was awkward at first, but they were extremely friendly, and we got along very well. Both parents were doctors, she in general practice, and he in some capacity with the national railway company. They were a great aid in explaining many things to me along the way.
    The only part of our conversation that made me uncomfortable was when they would talk about the "lower social classes," for instance, in telling me how I should avoid the open-windowed sleeper-class cars. In my short time in India, I saw people in many different economic conditions; what I couldn't see was the class structure as they apparently saw it. Another part of India I know nothing about...

    The view out the dust-streaked window, during the few daylight hours on this overnight trip, was mostly grazing fields or, the farther southeast we went, endless rice fields of rice, most exposed in this, the dry season.

    
    And passing through a town:

    And my favorite: watching one of the rails, through a gap between two of the cars. This is tantalizing taste of sights and sounds that are available on an open window car. I'd be happy to make this into an endless-loop audio tape as a sleep aid!:

    Not much to say about the train trip. It was a little disappointing. The 1AC car experience was a little bland. The sealed windows locked out what could have been the best part of the journey. Here is another train with open (but barred) windows, with the father in my compartment pointing them out:

    I offered to leave the compartment to let the family get set up with the provided bedding (sheets, pillows, and a thin duvet-like blanket), but they insisted no, not needed. I left anyway for a walk through some of the other cars to give them some space. I slept pretty well overall, and we rolled into Howrah Station, across the Hooghly River from the center of Calcutta about noon the next day:

    My hotel was about two miles away, and I really wanted to walk across the famous and massive Howrah Bridge, a steel cantilevered bridge over the Hooghly River, which was on the way:

    On the other side of the bridge was Calcutta proper. And although my first experience of that city was on the same day, I'm ending this entry here to catch my next plane. I hope to stuff as much as I can about this amazing city into the next entry, bandwidth permitting...