All language subtitles for 孟买铁路.E01.压力_track3_[eng]

Indian Railways
are the lifeline of the nation,

without them
the country simply cannot function.

And nowhere more so than in Bombay,
India's premier city.

In 2005, it suffered the highest
rainfall recorded
in the city's history.

A metre of rain fell in 12 hours.

The deluge could not drain away
fast enough,

and the city suffered
its worst ever flood.

The suburban network was paralysed;

trains marooned, stations cut off.

Over a thousand people
lost their lives.

India's richest, most powerful city

had been strangled by
the monsoon rains.

But amazingly,

in less than 48 hours, the
trains were running again.

This is the story
of the Bombay Railway.

Bombay was originally made up of
seven islands of low lying swamps

and malaria-infested mud flats.

Gifted by the Portuguese
to the British,

it had always been
a trading city.

But with the coming of the railway,
Bombay began to boom.

Today some parts of the city
have a population density

of one million people
per square mile..

By 2020, Bombay is set
to be the world's largest city.

CAR HORNS BLARE

Six and a half million commuters

travel up and down the on the
city's suburban rail network.

It's like a small country
on the move, and every day

ten thousand new immigrants
swell the city's population.

Alice in Wonderland
type of situation.

You have to keep on going two
steps to remain where you are.

We have no control over that.

We are.. our job is to
provide transportation,

and if ten thousand people
are coming here, then

they have better opportunities.

Mumbai is a land of dreams.

This is where dreams are made.

The dream of the British Empire
was to criss cross

the subcontinent with a railway
that would be the envy of the world.

ANNOUNCEMENT OVER TANNOY

In the heart of the city,
they built Victoria Terminus,

a railway station of
cathedral size proportions,

now the most photographed building
in India after the Taj Mahal.

It stands on the site of the
very first railway line to be

laid in India more than a
hundred and fifty years ago.

The British Raj in India was just a
blip in the history of the country.

The British were simply
the last invaders

in a catalogue of occupations.

But the Indians themselves
have never invaded

another country in over 5,000 years.

The British left in 1947.

They left behind the foundations of
the legal system, the civil service,

the principals of democracy
and the railways.

Today India is the world's
largest democracy,

and it runs the
greatest rail network in all Asia.

And it all started here.

But perhaps it was
the British sense of time

which was most alien
to the population.

Clocks and timetables
were a difficult concept,

but the railway revolutionised
travel and introduced

a British sense of time.

Today the Tower clock, made by Lund
and Blockley in 1888,

faces the city from the dome
of the station,

and it's still wound by hand.

They say that when the wire broke,
the counter weight fell

through the ceiling of the General
Manager's private bathroom,

destroying a fine
collection of memorial plates.

The tower clock has been
called the Big Ben of Bombay,

except it doesn't chime.

After Independence, the private
railway companies were nationalised.

Bombay changed its name to Mumbai.

Victoria terminus became the
headquarters of the Central Railway

and changed its name to Chatravaji
Shivaji Terminus or CST for short.

Its sister station at Churchgate

became headquarters
of the Western Railway.

Between them, these two railways
must carry millions of commuters

in and out of the city everyday.

The railway is so heavily used here
that almost 50% of all passenger

journeys in India are
either to or from Mumbai.

Two nine, 25...

To help keep the
suburban system running,

in the operation room, teams of
highly trained controllers

keep the trains moving.

It's as complicated an operation
as at any airport.

The TMS, or
Train Management System,

is the very latest technology
employed by the Indian Railways

to keep its trains running on time.

We have fairly good reputation
for doing it very punctually,

our punctuality is around 97%, and we
have very few cancellations,

that is about 0.1%
of the total running.

OP Chaturvedi is one of 500 or so
drivers and guards

on the suburban network.

OP joined the railway when life
in the city was so much simpler.

BELL PINGS

OP had already gained a science
degree

when he applied to the
Indian Railways for a job,

a coveted government position -

secure, well paid, respected.

30 years on and now a senior
driver on the Central Railway,

both the city and the job have
lost a little of their glitter.

HORN SOUNDS

BELL PINGS

The motorman's lobby is
at the back of VT station and

it's here that drivers and guards
like OP report for duty each day.

Although there are numerous forms to
fill out and daily notices to read,

on everything from track maintenance
to signal changes,

there's more personal information

on who's retiring and
who's due for a medical.

The lobby is a home from home.

Old friends, tea, a place to relax
and reminisce about the old days,

when a rupee was a rupee.

At the end of the month I would have
saved bloody twenty or thirty rupees.

I used to save, after
smoking, smoking, everything,

so it was very cheap.

Previously when I'm taking my bag and
tell my missus I am going for duty,

I am very happy I'm going for
my train, that I am a driver.

But now I'm 54.

God has given my fate - you have to
bloody run the trains on the tracks.

Work like a bloody donkey.

You won't get anything.

So...

I am doing that.

More than 2,000 trains
travel up and down

the city's 300 kilometres
of suburban track,

24 hours a day.

During peak hours, the pressure
on the drivers is so great

that trains cannot stop for more
than 30 seconds at any one station.

CAR HORNS BLARE

With the city's roads in a state
of almost permanent gridlock,

the railways are the most reliable,
the most environmentally friendly,

the fastest and cheapest way
of travelling around the city.

You will be surprised to know that
our season tickets are so cheap

that I charge a person seven paisa
for a kilometre in second class.

Seven paisa...

I mean, one rupee is 100 paisa,
and I think 45 rupees is a dollar.

So you divide it by 45,
and divide it by 100,

and then multiply by seven
for one kilometre.

It works out so cheap that a ticket
costs less than a penny per mile.

But as the working population
expands,

the city's commuters have to travel
greater distances to work,

and transporting them is
stretching the system to its limit.

'We run an average of about 3,000
passengers per train.'

That is what
puts a pressure on our system.

And since everybody wants
to come in the morning,

we have a defined morning peak
hours and evening peak hours.

Morning peak the
movement is towards south.

People from north are
coming towards south.

We run about 99 trains in about three
hours period, carrying these people.

That is why the overcrowding
is of such...

what we euphemistically call
Super Dense Crush Load Factor -

as if we have
coined a word for that..

Super Dense Crush Load Factor.

As the sun sets on
another working day,

commuters begin their journey home
in trains meant to carry 1,200.

At peak times,
they often carry up to 5,000.

This is the Super Dense Crush Load.

Mumbai is the commercial and
financial capital of India,

and it's booming.

But living in this city is tough,
and expensive.

The railway is overcrowded, but the
city could not function without it.

The writer Suketu Mehta calls
Bombay the boot camp of the west -

If you can make it here,
you can make it anywhere.

On the 16th April 1853, the British
completed the first railway line
in India.

It ran between Bombay's Victoria
Terminus and Thane,

a small town 21 miles due north.

Thane has now become a
major urban centre,

and the station one of the network's
most important railway junctions.

Indian Railways officially employs
one and a half million people.

But there are countless millions
of unofficial workers

who rely on the railways
to make a living.

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

Balu Dhokale arrived on Thane
station as a penniless runaway kid,

and he never left.

Hello.

As he grew up around the station,

Balu became something
of an entrepreneur.

Now he has fingers in many pies,

a regular jack the lad.

He collects licence money from the
shoe shine boys on the platform,

and he's part owner
of a juice stall.

Everybody on Thane station
seems to know him...

or owe him.

Throughout his life, the railway and
its passengers have provided him

with something of a living.

Now that Balu is married with three
kids, a house and a pension plan,

he wants to put something back
into the station community.

This city has been the favourite
destination of runaway kids for
generations.

There's a unique bond
between them and the railway.

For Balu who survived and prospered,
there's also a sense of duty.

So, as well as helping runaway kids
like Shankar,

Balu is a volunteer
driver for the station ambulance.

Railway stations and railway trains
have been woven into the fabric

of Indian life
for more than 150 years.

For traders, the railway is
an inexhaustible marketplace.

For runaway kids it's a place where
you can feel a part

of the railway family,
and free to be yourself.

Whatever your skill, you can always
earn a few rupees on the train.

And for poor kids, hawking or
begging offers a practical,

but illegal, survival option.

Everyday, another 30 runaways land
up at railway stations in the city.

Like everyone else, they've come to
make a better life.

On the suburban railway,

women have always had the option of
travelling separately from men.

Yet despite their liberal attitudes,

in this, the most modern of Indian
cities

every suburban train has
ladies only compartments.

Outside of peak hours, they provide
a more secure and calmer environment

for lady commuters, and for
professional hawkers like Lavinga.

In 1992, the railways introduced a
new concept -

The Ladies only Special.

Running seven times a day,

the specials were a big hit with
the ladies, and with Lavinga.

Have a nice day.

Have a nice day!

Hawking on trains goes on all over
India, but it's illegal,

so whether you are selling
toothbrushes or saris,

if you're caught, you will be
arrested and fined,

and maybe even go to jail.

Bye, madam.

To protect the public
and the system,

the railways has its own police,
the Railway Protection Force.

The RPF is a paramilitary outfit.

They provide security on trains
and stations

for dignitaries and officials,
sometimes keeping public order,

and often on parade.

They are all railway employees.

And as railway employees,
their police powers are limited.

Their normal daily duties involve
the policing of petty crimes.

But the spirit of his paramilitary
training

has never left RPF
Inspector Dinesh Kanojia.

When morale needs a boost,
he's keen to remind his men

that in the fight against railway
crime, they've been trained to kill.

As public servants and
guardians of railway property,

most RPF time is spent dealing
with minor misdemeanours.

Travelling without a ticket,
riding on the roof of a train

or crossing the track
are all illegal.

And like hawking,
if you are arrested,

you are liable to a fine
and you could be sent to jail.

Commuters struggling home crowd
the trains and the stations,

as the time of the super
dense crush load begins.

For the railway and for the public,

this is the most dangerous time
of the day.

People are willing to take
all kinds of risks

to save time
and to save money.

But commuters die.

They fall off trains, get
electrocuted on the roof,

but most commonly,
they are hit by a train.

HORN SOUNDS

Nearly everyone walks
across the tracks

rather than cross
by the foot bridges.

But when these trains are running at
maximum frequency and maximum speed,

there's no room for error.

Thousands lose their lives
each year on this railway,

the majority whilst illegally
crossing the tracks.

And the railways seem
unable to stop them.

In rural India, you can
always hear the train coming.

But in Mumbai, trains run silently
and fast,

and their approach is
muffled by the sounds of the city.

For the victims, it is death.

But for the drivers,
it is both dangerous and traumatic.

BELL RINGS

At the motorman's lobby
in Victoria Terminus,

drivers and guards are praying to
the goddess Durga on the full moon.

She's been adopted as the patron
saint of railway operations,

and they believe she will remove
obstacles from their path,

and keep them safe from harm.

As the rush reaches its peak,

OP Chaturvedi awaits
his train allocation.

He knows that somewhere on
the suburban system today,

up to ten people may be killed
and many others will be injured.

They will mostly be trespassers,

illegally crossing the track
to save time.

On the platform at Diva station
lies the unidentified body

of a young girl
killed on the tracks.

The authorities suspect suicide,

but the Railway Police
cannot confirm this.

The body of the young girl is to be

taken to nearby Thane station
where Balu's voluntary ambulance

service will take her to the nearest
hospital morgue for a post mortem.

She has no identity papers,
but they think she is a Hindu.

For Balu,
it's just another routine pick-up.

For OP, running over a person
is an occupational hazard...

a burden he has grown to accept.

Each year 3,500 people are killed
by trains in the city

and the numbers are rising.

The suburban railway runs
almost 24 hours a day.

The last train arrives at 2.40am.

The first train leaves
less than an hour later.

Mumbai is a city that never sleeps

and neither does the railway.

For long distance travellers,
platforms become waiting rooms

and the stations become sanctuaries
for people with nowhere else to go.

For Shankar, ex-beggar, shoeshine
boy, hawker, labourer and tea boy

life on Thane station
has reached an all-time low.

Mumbai was once seven islands.

And for the last 300 years
they have been joining them up.

The population has grown so quickly
that living space and transport

systems have become the city's
most urgent priorities.

On both systems of Central Railway
and Western railway,

we carry more than six million
passengers a day - a day!

I think this sort of traffic
doesn't exist anywhere in the world.

Mumbai is the El Dorado of our
country. It's a city of dreams.

We introduce 100 more trains,
I think another 100,000 will come to

this town and start living somewhere,

saying the services
are now available.

The railway plans longer trains
more lines and even a metro,

but it all takes time.

There are grand plans there,
but nobody to implement it.

For another 50 years,
things will be like this only.

I will not be alive, but my children
will be travelling.

Things will be like this.

It is the duty of the railways to
provide adequate facilities

to the customers who are paying
their hard-earned money.

A massive redevelopment
and expansion programme
has been launched.

But middle class commuters facing
ever more overcrowding

and rising fatalities are not happy
with the railway's progress.

Part of the problem for the railways

is the system cannot run
any more trains.

There's just no more space.

And they cannot construct more lines

because much of the existing tracks
are hemmed in by slums.

It's been estimated

that over 50% of the city's
population live in slums -

more than seven million people.

With their plastic and bamboo
hutments,

generations have grown up
living beside the line.

To expand the network,
these railside shanties -

for so long a part of
the city's landscape -

will have to go.

Today's operation to remove slum
dwellers from this section of line

is the result of
months of preparation.

It involves railway police,

city police, municipal officials
and contract labourers.

Legally, families who have lived
in a slum for more than a decade

are entitled to be rehoused
by the State Government.

CHILD WAILS

Faced with the
destruction of their homes...

almost every slum dweller claims
to be a long-term resident.

The slums have created
a major bottleneck

in the expansion
of the railways in Mumbai.

And the process of clearing them,
rehousing the people

and building new lines
will take another ten years.

At Central Station,
the women's division of the RPF -

known as G77 - are planning
a raid on the Ladies Special.

Dressed in plain clothes,
they are on the lookout for

ticketless travellers
and illegal hawkers.

The first victim of the raid
is a young girl selling bangles.

Lavinga's been arrested.

At Central Station,
she's formally charged.

She knows the procedure -
she's been here many times before.

Special Constable Ananpurna
has heard it all before.

Lavinga is to appear before
the magistrate the next day.

As his 15th birthday approaches,

Shankar is taking
a long hard look at his life.

Thanks to Balu and the railways,

he's survived in Thane
for more than two years.

Most major stations in
Mumbai and throughout India
have their own railway courts.

They mainly deal with victimless
crimes and minor misdemeanors.

The magistrate today in Court 36
is Prakash Rahule -

a human rights lawyer
and a published poet.

The whole process
takes about 15 minutes

and Lavinga has been fined
400 rupees.

For her it's just an overhead -

but more importantly she's also
lost a day's business on the train.

Being a magistrate I have to be
a magistrate.

I have to go by the evidence
which comes before me.

And I have to deliver a judgement,

pronounce a judgement as by
the record before me,

even though the poet is
not happy with that,

I have to do that as a magistrate.

Balu's is one of
life's natural survivors.

But the railways have been his life,

and today he's grateful for that.

For the less fortunate,
who have fallen through the net,

there is just one option left -

charity.

Having survived on the railway for
more then two years,

Shankar has decided to join Aasra,
one of the many charities

who look after the city's
orphaned and runaway kids.

It is not a bad life,
but it is not a satisfactory life.

Not bad life.

It is...

I can say...thrilling job,

but up to a certain age,
it is all right.

But after crossing that period,
it is very horrible.

Now I am 54,
all the bloody joints are loose.

So tomorrow morning,
I have to go for duties,

bloody I am going to think
from night,

I have to go for duty,
but I have to go.

OP has already completed more
than thirty years of duty.

And when he does retire, he'll
lose his subsidised railway flat,

but he has no worries
about the future.

Suppose if I retire today,

I should get not less
than 8,000 rupees pension.

So 8,000 rupees is sufficient

for two persons,
myself and my missus.

Money is no problem,

money is no problem,
but I won't remain in Bombay.

That is final.

As soon as I retire, I take myself
up from railways and I...

BELL RINGS

After retirement he'll receive his
railway pension,

free rail passes
and free medical care.

Since he'll lose his railway flat,

he's decided to move to the country,
to his native place.

One stop from the end of
the western suburban line, Lavinga

and her family are about to step
onto the property ladder.

Amazingly after 12 years of hawking
on the railway, she's saved

enough money to put the deposit
on a new-build two bedroom flat.

It will be their first ever property
and the start of a new life.

Railways actually is a
microcosmic form of the country.

Indian Railways is something
what our country is.

We're everywhere. We've followed
all the tenets of our constitution.

There's no caste, no creed.

We treat everybody equal in this
organisation and probably the working

atmosphere that we have created

shows what this country
wants it to be socially.

In July 2006, a series of
seven terrorist bombs exploded

on Mumbai's rush hour trains.

200 people were killed
and 700 injured.

The attack brought all suburban
trains to a complete standstill.

We knew that the loss of life
which must have taken place

cannot be reverted,

but what we can probably do
is to give a semblance of

normalcy to the town,

so that when the town
functions normally

there would not be
law and order problem.

We had announced that we will run
almost all the services the next day.

So the schools were not closed,
the offices were not closed,

the markets were kept open.

By 12 hours in the noon,
and we were back 100% on the rail.

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