BENGALURU: It is arriving...just a couple of minutes more,” says one. And half a dozen others who are with him eagerly wait and watch. Their eyes shine the moment they see the object of their devotion: a train chugging along the tracks.
These are some of the enthusiastic railfans of the Indian Railways Fan Club (IRFCA), who informally meet from time to time. “Naturally enough, we meet on railway platforms sometimes,” says Narayan, an IT professional with Oracle and a member of the nearly 100-strong Bengaluru unit of the club.
“We are divided by profession but united by trains,” is the pithy observation of K Pramodh, assistant vice-president at a multinational bank.
Watching trains, alerting members on train delays, feverishly posting railway developments across the country on their website and social media are just a few of their regular activities.
The Bengaluru railfan community understands a train’s language. “Just by listening to a loco’s horn, members can identify the train and the locomotive attached to it,” informs Pawan Koppa, a member.
Among their hobbies is recording and sharing of sounds heard on platforms and railway tracks with fellow railfans. Locomotive horns, track sounds, announcements made at railway stations are music to their ears.
This youngish, all-male group, is part of the 7,000-strong club with its fan base extending across the country and abroad as well. “It was started inside the University of Maryland on August 29, 1989, by a small group of IITians who loved the Indian Railways and were pursuing their higher studies in the US,” says Abhilash Triambak, a senior consultant at Infosys, Bengaluru.
“It began with the members mailing their experiences on train travel to one another. It then moved to Yahoo groups and gradually evolved into a big online forum. I stumbled upon this group in 2004 while searching for a photo of my favourite train online and have been a member ever since. Thus began the networking with other railfans in Bengaluru,” he explains.
The IRFCA is now the single biggest online collection of Indian Railway photos and trivia with even Railway officials often referring to it for information. “The advent of social media, particularly WhatsApp, has helped us update each other instantly and stay regularly in touch,” says G K Harisharan, another member.
Milestones achieved by the Railways are personal celebratory moments for these railfans. For instance, members of the group celebrated the golden jubilee of the Brindavan Express both at Chennai Central and Bangalore City stations on October 1, 2014 with a traditional cake cutting ceremony and decking up the train at both places.
In fact, the craze for trains is such that an annual convention is held in a different city every year. “The need for a regular meet-up and putting faces to people who were only interacting online resulted in the first IRFCA convention in 2006 in Pune,” says Koppa who was involved in organising the event back then.
“We have held 11 conventions already. In 2009, it was held in Bengaluru and this year’s meeting will be held in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, from January 27-28,” says Sathya, assistant consultant, TCS.
And there are those like the videography duo, A Nikhil and C Natarajan, who travel around the country at their own expense and record milestones. Natarajan, an engineering graduate, started taking photographs of trains as many in his family were railway employees.
They are currently documenting the conversion of meter gauge rails to broad gauge in different parts of the country.
Closer home, Koppa and other railfans keenly followed and recorded the gauge conversion of the Chikkaballapur-Kolar line. They are also documenting the progress of the soon-to-be inaugurated Nelamangala-Shravanabelagola rail line.