I’m an NRI living in U.S for about 7 years now. My hometown is in ooty. A year ago I made a trip to Ooty from U.S. On my way back to U.S I took the train from Ooty to Mettuppalayam to Chennai. I reserved First Class Sleeper A/C on the train that starts from Mettuppalayam (Called Nilagiri Express or Blue Mountain Express). There weren’t too many people on it (I would say about 10 or so in a coach). I got in, and the A/C was just a little better than the 100 degree Farenheit outside. So I thought once the train starts things will get better, battery will be charged. ALAS! I was wrong.
The train reached coimbatore and still the A/C was warm. I was sweating. After it left coimbatore, the A/C was technically completely off. Which means, its 100 times worser than a Third class because you can’t open the windows and you’re literally baked inside. Most people were local and they don’t seem to care as they were used to the heat.
And most of them seemed to be railway executives or corporate people travelling through company’s expense. So no one questioned about it. The temperature crossed 105 Farenheit (I had a casio pathfinder watch so I could tell the correct temperature). I started bleeding from my nose with closed doors and no A/C. I asked the guard what the problem was, and he said the A/C battery was dead and it wouldn’t charge.
So I said that I’m going to complain about this in writing. But he said he will lose the job and that the executives are also involved in this. Sometimes they save money (???? pocket the money into their own pockets) by not replacing them. In other words they indicate that they have purchased new batteries for the A/C but pocket that money and re-use the old stuff and rip off customers who use the train.
I was half dead by the time I reached chennai. 3 hours closer to chennai, I forced them to open the doors and had to sit near the door to get some air. 2000 Rs. later I had an experience worser than a third class by suffocating. With all bribing and pocketing government money, consumers are the one being ripped off and suffering. From that time onwards, I decided to take the domestic airline from chennai to coimbatore and then take a car from coimbatore to ooty or take the train (toy train) from mettuppalayam to ooty.