The Indian Railways Fans Club

Mumbai: Gathered at the far end of platform number 6 of Dadar's central railway station, seven men eagerly await the Bangalore Mumbai Udyan Express. As the train chugs in, passengers rush towards the coaches, but the group only moves closer to the engine.

"This one has a WDP4 diesel engine. It is one of my favourites," says Giridhar Patnaik, one of the 200 Mumbai-based members of the Indian railways fan club.

Dadar station's deserted end has been a meeting point for the members. The station master raised his eyebrows when they first introduced themselves as 'rail fans', but greets them pleasantly these days even if he still can't quite fathom "what's the point of looking at something that turns up every three minutes". But Apoorva Karlekar, a student, says rail fans are no different from car enthusiasts who spend hours studying different car models.

They know the railway timetables by heart (both local and outstation), understand the technical functioning of various train engines, can tell which model of the engine it is by listening to its distant honk and also calculate its speed in a matter of seconds.

The rail fans have activities planned throughout the year. The Deccan Queen, for instance, celebrates her birthday on June 1 and the fans will travel to Pune with a cake and balloons for the occasion. The icing on the cake for a trainspotter is rail photography, and the group has a number of avid photographers.

But the star among them is Arzan Kotwal, who is a rail videographer. He diligently goes on a rail trek every Sunday, tracking the route of a train through hills and forests to get the best shots. Kotwal has 345 uploaded videos of trains, right from the CST-Aurangabad Shatabdi going through the tunnel to 'The Deadly WDP4 Udyan Express' which has received over 35,000 hits on Youtube in just a few months.

"Shooting a train passing at great speed is the most thrilling experience. It is like a horror movie. It scares you but you still enjoy it," says Kotwal. The rains are the best time for rail photography and most members will set off on rail treks.

The fans often take trips to various locations across the country. Normal people obviously pick a train on the basis of its destination, but these trainspotters have other considerations - the route it takes, the type of engine, the colours of the engine and what noise it makes.

"No wonder people think we are crazy," quips Siddhartha Fondekar, a student of St Xavier's College, who at 17 is one of the youngest members of the railway fan club. He mostly prefers to keep quiet about his hobby because of the ridicule it draws from many of his peers.

But the Gen Y fans have also brought a new flavour to the group. College student Sagar Patil creates train-based cellphone themes and most also record train horns which can be turned into ringtones. Karan Desai shows off his ringtone which is the sound of the running Rajdhani. "Like people listen to songs, we listen to train sounds. They sound divine," explains Karlekar.

Bollywood rail-bashing is another thing they do. "In The Burning Train, the shot shows a diesel engine but the soundtrack is that of an electric engine. In Jab We Met, the Barangar station that Kareena Kapoor gets off on is actually Khandala," Fondekar points out with obvious glee. Desai recently took a trip to Apta station near Karjat, where most of the Hindi movie train scenes are shot, including the famous final scene of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. The quaint little station also features in a train scene of Slumdog Millionaire.

Every member of the club has his own special interest. While Fondekar is a keen rail historian, Ajit Rao, an IT professional, has been collecting railway time tables ever since he was seven (see box). It's an eclectic mix, consisting of IIT professors, engineers, students, ex-railway employees, filmmakers etc. Friends and family have fondly nick-named them "the railway ministers". IRFCA is the acronym for the Indian Railways Fan Club. "The extra A is there for historical reasons," smiles Ajit Rao.

Founder member Ajay Banerjee, then a student of Stanford, started it back in 1989 when the Internet had just been introduced. The net enabled him to connect with other students with a similar passion. By pure chance, Banerjee also came across annual reports of the Indian Railways in the Stanford library, which gave the group its initial research impetus.

"There are probably none available in India, but the British had archived them in America. The earliest report I read was that of 1859." Today the Indian Railway Fan Club of America is moderated from India but the A still stays for nostalgic reasons.

The club now has 6000 members worldwide and over the years, the IRFCA website has turned into an online encyclopaedia of sorts for everything on the railways, be it footage of now extinct trains or old railway advertisements.

Rail photographers also get a chance to display their work on the website, with sometimes unforeseen results. Recently a picture from the site appeared in a newspaper advertisement with a picture of Lalu Prasad Yadav next to it. "Check any railway time table and it will have a picture taken by one of our members. But we don't mind. We don't do it for money. This is our hobby," says Fondekar.

The members also function as a pressure group that constantly writes to the authorities for better rail conditions and facilities. Akshay Marathe, for instance, has taken up the lack of leg room and poor quality in the recently introduced MRVC trains. "MRVC promised to increase the distance between the seats by 10cm, but they haven't done it. I measured it myself."

Great rail routes

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
This hill railway was constructed in 1881 and was inscribed as a World Heritage Areain 1999 by UNESCO. It is the first hill railway in India and only second in the world to get this prestigious status.

Konkan Railway
With a total number of over 2,000 bridges and 91 tunnels through mountainous terrain, this was the biggest and most difficult railway undertaking in the country.

Nilgiri Mountain Railway
The route receives an average rainfall of 1250 mm. The railway keeps chugging despite the downpour. The route is known for its scenic beauty. Shah Rukh Khan's famous number Chaiyan Chaiyan from Dil Se was shot atop this train.