CHENNAI : A week back a video of a man vandalising the doors of Tejas Express, a semi-high speed fully air conditioned train from Chennai to Madurai, at Anna Nagar station went viral. He was identified to be a railway contract worker. Following which, in four days, the general manager of ICF sought immediate action by terminating him from work. This prompt response wouldn’t have been possible without Jerin George, who uploaded the video on his YouTube channel under the same name.
Jerin is among the few who has been pursuing railfanning as a hobby since 2014. “The content of this hobby includes capturing long trains passing through stations at high speed creating dustorms. I’ve been updating subscribers on new events in the railways. For example, there’s a video on the brand new bullet train which runs at flat 200 km/hr immediately after it was launched.
It involves capturing every moment of a journey and compiling them to make a review or a trip report and includes capturing rare moments like diesel engines chugging down a gradient. It feels great to interact with people who comment on the videos. They give us more leads. Some videos create nostalgia for those living abroad,” said Jerin, whose YouTube channel has over 650 videos and 8,320 subscribers.
Jerin was introduced to railfanning by one of his friends. “I had uploaded a video of a train set on fire during a strike in Andhra Pradesh in 2015. That was my first and it had 2,200 viewers in three days. YouTube sent me a notification which I noticed only after six months. I realised the number of fan followers that Indian Railways had. Ever since then I’ve been uploading one video a day,” said Jerin, who is pursuing mechanical engineering at SRM College. He aspires to become a pilot.
Though trains dominate his focus, there are videos of airplane landings and bus journeys from terminal to the end point. Jerin is good with journey compilations and has 26 of them on his channel. This includes putting together videos taken during the journey and giving subtitles for people to understand everything from the route and train number to halt stations and pantry services. His most popular video with 18 lakh viewers is that of three trains standing one after another on the same track near Chetpet railway station. The most interesting routes captured are from Chennai to Vasco da Gama through Doodhsagar falls, a sought-after hiking heaven.
“I made some money out of the channel and bought a tripod and zoom lens for my SLR camera. My most favourite part would be the horn of the train. Especially when it comes chugging through a tunnel in a hilly or forest area. The sight is extraordinary from a far-off distance. It’s a ritual to go to different stations every week and capture videos.
Since my father mostly travels round the year, I ask him to capture videos too,” said Jerin. He loves to spend his early morning over the Padi flyover to watch trains being dispatched from ICF. Other favourite spots include Chennai Central station and Trisulum station near the airport.
Railfanning is a rare hobby, but there are quite a few WhatsApp groups that provide information on the latest updates in railways. He follows the Indian Railways page for alerts and is a part of the Indian Railway Fan Club Association.
“The challenging part is to escape from the RPF guards who try to take away the cameras. Sometimes people from the train throw objects at us when they see the cameras. It’s also common to get injured on the tracks when safety measures are not taken. Plagiarism is common and we need to give the copyrights if we take popular videos from other channels. I upload only my original works,” he said. Jerin draws inspiration from a YoutTube channel called The Railzone. To see how railfanning works, follow Jerin George’s YouTube channel.