Authorities of India are planning to run trains, intended only for foreign tourists. Trains with improved layout of small cars will move between the major tourist cities in the country, which will attract more travelers from America, Europe and Asia to visit India.
Now tourists traveling to India, have not a lot of choices on which train to travel –they have to choose between traveling on conventional trains, in the cars packed with the Indians, chickens and bags of belongings, or on luxury trains, the tickets for which are too expensive.
New car designers are working on now, are provided with ergonomically designed seats and toilets, wide beds, and leave more free space for passengers’ feet. In addition, they will be adapted for traveling people with different disabilities.
The windows in the carriages will be wider to allow tourists a better view, and young boys and girls, who will be trained to be hospitable and communicative with foreigners, will be selected as tourist guides. Special booklets will tell visitors about new Indian trains. This booklets will be distributed to agencies in major cities of Europe, USA and South-East Asia.
Let us remind that the state of trains in India today leaves much to be desired. Train-involved accidents are frequent here, and many of them go back to the root time of English colonization. However, trains are the most common high-speed, but not too reliable transport in this country. Therefore, the vast majority of local residents are traveling by train. Trains are overcrowded and many Indians climb on the roofs of cars, which often leads to tragic consequences afterwards.
Thus, in late January 2009 as a result of the railway incident in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, 6 people were killed and 200 wounded. Many young people on their way to the recruiting station, sat directly on the roofs of cars of express, on route from the city of Allahabad to the city of Faizabad. The tragedy occurred because of the fact that people were swept away from the wagons by overhanging tree branches.
Illustrative is the statement by the Minister of Railway Transport of India, who in 2004 took no responsibility for accidents, which are constantly taking place in one of the largest systems in the world of communications. He said that the fate of 13 million passengers using trains every day, is in the hands of the god of machines Vishvakarman. “Indian Railways are under the authority of God Vishvakarman. Therefore, ensuring the safety of passengers is his duty, not mine “, – said Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav during his visit to his native city of Patna in eastern India.
