Riding the train

We took five night trains plus about four day trains in India. While some tourists we met loathed their train experiences, we were quite impressed with the Indian train system and (usually) the trains!
Here are a few photos and anecdotes from our train trips.

We made our train reservations with the help of our friend, Elizabeth, who currently lives in Bangalore. Reservations for long train trips can fill up, so we booked our tickets online almost three weeks in advance.
Of course, plans change and we later decided to cut out a few stops at the end and head straight to Bangalore. Good thing Josh is with me- we headed straight to the women only line with this sign, skipping the longer lines at other windows, to cancel three of our train tickets for a nominal fee. We thought the sign was funny, partly because it very politely (gents?) tells men to just go away!
There are lots and lots of classes on Indian trains. We tended to splurge on AC and go for 2AC or 3AC on the sleeper trains, the primary difference being berths stacked two high or three high. In this photo you can see the bars on the windows of the non-AC cars.
Waiting for the train to come. The board holds lists of reserved berths/seats with names, sex, and ages (a little odd to see your name on a random bulletin board in India). The trains tended to come as much as two hours late, but somehow they always made it to the final destination on time or only a half hour late... we never figured out how this was possible!On our trip from Jodhpur to Ahmedabad (a stopover on our way to Jalgaon/Ajanta caves), we stayed in the only AC car/coach on the train. We also provided hours of entertainment for the man in charge of the coach with our "Point It" book, a tiny picture book full of photos of anything and everything (handy in cross-language "conversations"). He works only that train and its one AC car, traveling about 1500 km from Ahmedabad all the way up to Jammu/Kashmir and then back, spending 5 days working and then 2 days off.
That same man also got us our lunch that day. The train didn't have the usual pantry car, so he called a restaurant two stops ahead on his cell phone and got us a freshly-made lunch picked up at the Mt Abu train station. It came in all these little plastic bags tied with string and paper plates recycled from glossy cardboard. Trains with a pantry car will have men walking through selling chai (tea), coffee, drinks, and snacks. We think they hold auditions for the jobs: lowest voice gets to call "cha-ee, cha-ee." (Alan, if you're considering a career change, this could be the job for you.)
Mmmm... train food. Well, train station food...

We often traveled at night, but that day we didn't. The scenery was spectacular!

This photo shows a typical 2AC sleeper car. Bedding is provided, although the privacy curtains don't exist in the 3AC car. We found the comfort level to depend on the people, not the number of berths. For example, in one train we were the only people in our 6-person compartment by the time we got to the final destination. On another, we shared our 4-person compartment with a young couple, their whiny two-year-old, and a brother-in-law who liked to sit with them during the day. Oh, and they were moving across the country, so they'd taken up every last space with their luggage since they got on before us... Day trains sometimes have chair cars, which are also nice enough.
Had to show at least one photo. This is a very nice toilet on a newer 2AC coach. Kinda fun to see the train tracks whirring below you...
We discovered the 1 rupee scales in Ahmedabad. You can learn your weight in kilos and they even give you a fortune in Hindi!