Now what's there in a train and why are you so crazy about it??? This one question which people around me have been asking me for the whole of my life so far! Well to all those people out there, here is my answer.... Its my life! No doubt about that. Not that I wanted to be different from others... but this passion of mine made me different! To be true, Railways occupy a significant position very close to my heart! Trains are ones which I love more than myself. No exaggeration here! Right from my childhood I grew up watching trains rather than cartoons.(My residence is located very close to the railway lines along the Chennai-Bangalore route) I can still remember my younger days when I used to have a notebook in which I used to jot down all the names of the trains zooming past my home with the time of crossing, sitting right from my balcony. That was all the rail-fanning I was able to do as an 8 year old kid! There were also days when my cousin used to accompany me.... He is not an ardent railfan though! I started drawing sketches of trains and did the same to win some drawing competitons too. Gosh! Were they so realistic or what??? Well I can pat myself that I'm quite good in drawing trains if not other stuff! Couple of years later when the mighty WAPs came into operation I was quite able to guess with its looks and charisma that they were dedicated entirely to passenger service just because I felt like that! Those days I used to distinguish WAPs, WAMs and their mighty counterparts WAGs as "express engines" and "goods engines" respectively. Hehe! There wasn't anyone to provide me proper information on what these mean machines were meant for actually.(After all I was a 10 year old kid then!) The "Time Table" (southern railways) remained the book which I gave the highest priority ever. Later when my dad accidentally encountered the "Trains at a glance" which is a larger version of all the zonal railway time tables covering all the routes and the trains across the country, I guessed i ve got the much needed treasure which I deserved a lot. Accidentally though! My dad is one guy who encourages me a lot in rail-fanning (He doesn't ask stupid questions like what others do. hehe!) and my uncle (who is a frequent traveler by the SCR) who shares his views about the Railways and his personal experiences and there's also a friend of mine who joins me during rail-fanning action! nice to see that atleast there are few people around me who have similar interests of mine :) Years later I was able to learn almost anything and everything about the great Indian Railways through the IRFCA website! and thanks a ton to all those people in Orkut who helped me in gaining more interesting information and stuff about railways throughout the country! Hope this journey never ends!
