It was the month of April 1979; I forget the exact date. The 1033 Railway Engineers, a Railway Territorial Army Unit, headquartered in Ajmer and comprising of staff of the Western Railway zone of the Indian Railways, had been embodied* in aid of civil power and deployed on the North East Frontier Railway zone. The latter had been having a large number of wildcat strikes and staff unrest leading to a stage where train operations were badly affected. One of the steps that the Ministry of Railways then took was to use Territorial Army (TA) units to assist in alleviating the effects of the non-cooperation of the staff.
On that fateful April evening almost four decades back, I was with the Commanding Officer of the unit, Lt. Col. P S Chaudhury, a railwayman, but then donning army greens and leading the TA unit. P S Chaudhury was the Chief Motive Power Engineer of the Western Railway in normal railway life. I was posted as Senior Mechanical Engineer (Construction) at Sabarmati (also on Western Railway) and was the member of the TA Battalion as a Lieutenant.
With a small contingent of TA railwaymen-turned-soldiers, we were at New Bongaigaon yard of the North East Frontier (NF) Railway. In those days, the Broad Gauge (BG) network ended at New Bongaigaon and further movement of trains towards Guwahati was on the Meter Gauge. As a result, there was a large marshalling yard at New Bongaigaon where all BG trains coming down the single line track from New Jalpaiguri terminated. The traffic pattern was such that most of these trains were loaded while those leaving the yard towards New Jalpaiguri comprised of empty wagons.
As the sun set over the Western horizon, we found that the yard was in a jam. There were two incoming freight trains but no line available in the yard to receive them. There were a number of rakes of empty wagons but only one locomotive, a WDM2, available. Thus, one line could be cleared but there would be no line for the second train. Of course, we could clear one line and bring in one train and then use its locomotive to move another train out. This would mean that a line could be cleared only when one train arrived and in the interim, you simply waited and twiddled your thumbs. To make matters worse, almost all wayside stations had stabled loads so that it wasn’t possible to terminate the incoming trains at any one of them.
Our Commanding Officer came up with a solution. Since all the wagons to be moved out were empty, the train load would be very low. He suggested that we couple two empty rakes together and move them out with the one locomotive available. This would immediately empty two lines. The only requirement would be that we would need a clear run with no stoppage for a crossing till the next yard, New Jalpaiguri, 251 kilometers away.
The Yard Master informed us that there was possibility of such a path if we left New Bongaigaon around 10 p.m. There were no passenger trains that would come in the way at that time and we could have a clear run to New Jalpaiguri. An immediate plan was then drawn up such that the train locomotive of this double train would be manned by a TA crew while an NF Railway regular would be the guard of the train. Shunting movements were immediately taken up and the long double train formed. The TA driver and the driver’s assistant got onto the locomotive and only the guard of the train was yet to arrive for the train to be ready to depart.
“What name do we give this train?” the Yard Master asked. “It is not a normal train.”
“Call it a Python,” P S Chaudhury suggested. “It can be called Python 1.”
And, thus it was that this two-rakes-coupled-as-one train came to be called the Python.
It was only a few minutes to 10 p.m. and the NF Railway Guard had still not turned up. The Yard Master was desperate.
“If we don’t start this train in a few minutes,” he said, “We will lose the path and not be able to run.”
P S Chaudhury had a solution for everything.
“J L Singh,” he looked at me. “You are the driver of this train.” He followed by telling the regular TA driver that he should run to the rear of the train and do the guard’s duties.
This is how I found myself manning the controls of the locomotive of the first python freight train of the Indian Railways. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first train to be named a python although such coupling of two rakes may have been done earlier. If any reader is aware of an earlier train on the Indian Railways that was named a python, please correct me.
I did a quick check of the locomotive. All parameters were in order. In particular, the vacuum gauge reading of the train brake pipe was adequate (those were the days of vacuum-braked trains). The starter signal for the train turned green and I pressed the button of the loco whistle to alert the guard that we were about to start. We looked back to get an all-clear hand signal from the guard but in the darkness and the haze could not see it. With the train now more than a kilometer in length, it would be difficult to see the signal in any case. After whistling a few times more, and to ensure that we did not miss our path, I eased the locomotive throttle to notch 1, then notch 2, and so on, till the train began to move and pick up speed as we left the yard. On the locomotive were the driver, i.e. me, the Assistant Driver of the TA and Lt. Col. P S Chaudhury.
Our run was smooth and easy. In spite of its length, the python handled very well. The python being longer than the loop lengths at the stations, we were getting a run through at each station. Just when we were approaching New Cooch Behar station and looking forward to an early arrival at New Jalpaiguri, the Assistant yelled that the Distant signal was yellow. This meant that the home signal could be red.
I applied the train brakes. As it should, the vacuum reading in the train pipe gauge fell. I knew that on a freight train, there is no perceptible reduction in speed immediately, but I found that even after a considerable length of time, the train speed was not reducing. By this time, the home signal was also visible and it was red and approaching fast. I applied emergency brakes, dropping the vacuum to zero. The speed began reducing, but not fast enough. We had already crossed the distant signal and the home was coming nearer and nearer. It was obvious that we would go past the signal.
“Switch off your headlight,” P S Chaudhury advised. “The station master will not know if you have crossed signals.”
With my heart in my mouth, I did so mechanically. Fortunately, the train had slowed considerably by this time and we were sure it would stop short of the facing points but would go beyond the home signal. This being 4-aspect upper quadrant semaphore signaling territory, the home was 120 meters from the facing points, so that we would not be going directly into the station yard immediately after the signal.
The locomotive came to a halt about 25-30 meters beyond the home. We heaved a collective sigh of relief that nothing untoward had happened.
While we were waiting, the guard, or should I say, the original driver, came up to the locomotive totally out of breath as he had come running from the guard’s van at the rear of the train a kilometer away.
“Sir,” he said, “The vacuum in my van is nil.”
An investigation showed that when the two rakes had been joined to form one train, the coupling had been correctly done, but the staff member had forgotten to couple the vacuum brake pipe. In effect, the brake power on the train was only 50%.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well. And, it did! We arrived safely at New Jalpaiguri early the next morning. And, that is how it was that I handled a python for the first and last time in my life.
*To assist the armed forces in case of war or the civilian administration during normal times, the Indian Railways maintains Territorial Army Units. These comprise of railway men who work normally like other railway men for 11 months in a year and for the remaining month, attend an army camp, where they are taught military craft like using a rifle, marching, drill, etc. In case the need arises, they are “embodied” for duty. This means that they give up their normal railway work and proceed in army uniform to assist the war effort or the civil administration as the need may be.