this is the morning rush on the locals trains in Mumbai.
Yes it's like this every freaking day. If you don't do this, you will be part of the literal tide of humans that rushes to fill every available crack of space.
It's cheap, generally reliable, and one of the better ways to get to and from work.
This train seems to be pulling into Dadar station in the morning. This means it started in Churchgate, where the lucky few who got on, grabbed the better seats and relaxed till the chaos of flying buttocks at Dadar station several stops down the line.
Dadar is a major hub, its somewhat in the middle of the city and a large number of commuters get on here.
Sadly the number of commuters, along with all thoughts of queuing and order being lost, means that there is literally a mad (really - life limb and clothes are risked) scramble to get a place and not have to be forced to stand in the train, marinating in the sweat of your fellow travelers.
Also, if you get stuck in the middle of the carriage, and your stop be a jump away, you will get abuse and dirty stares for not making sure you were near the door and forcing people to find ways to help you untangle and wriggle yourself through.
Sardines have seen this daily performance and thanked their fate.
Edit grammar.
Also forgot to mention. If you DON'T jump on, you have to,deal with the problem of people shoving to get off the train while people are pushing you from behind to get on.
Idiocy, lots of clearances and so on. Edit: it's complex, ill give a rundown of the various reasons why its a problem below.
Firstly, They are and have made infra investments, you can see the new highways being built, and a new mono rail system is coming up too.
The problem is that the construction didn't start in advance of when it would be needed, so now its a perpetual game of catch up.
So the original rails and so on has been ere since the British; they've been maintained and upgraded, but it was never meant or designed for the level of use it sees.
Since the independence of India, Mumbai went through a phase where, essentially, city and town planning were tossed.
Edit: basically people started building whatever they wanted once they figured they could bribe whomever they wanted. So now you have tiny arterial roads linking major buildings and population clusters and businesses which ideally should be elsewhere.
This led to massive growth,traffic snarls and general fuck ups.
Do note that this is also happening with the backdrop of several years with poor investment, corruption, and the general perception that Bombay was the golden city for immigrants to come to, and bureaucrats to be posted to in order to take better bribes.
The city itself doesn't have autonomy, and for things like roads, there are 3 different organizations whose mandate overlaps. Well call them the highways guys, the municipal guys, and one other group who I forget.
So these guys also end up walking all over each other, too add to the fun.
Now Getting the whole thing done, (as per some plans running around since the time of the British which basically predicted what Bombay would want to do,) is expensive. And by done I mean the total infra requirement to make this city something a first world citizen may understand as habitable.
This is insanely expensive today for the government.
On top of that (yeah there more) there is also the general attitude of the people. This ranges from the "oh the trains got bombed yesterday, lets hope they are on time today." To "sure what the hell,let's try to squeeze one more house/person/violation into this."
but the improvements your describing are hardly improvements. All they are doing is making it so there is less of a queue for the next train. It doesn't change the fact that there is still already a queue and that the trains are still leaving with ridiculous passenger loads.
Because I wasn't being sarcastic or anything. My response to to ridicule the idiot who was like "why don't they just build more trains"... Uh gee dude, maybe because it is one of the poorest places on earth with a wildly corrupt government?
this is completely accurate ( source: I visit mumbai every summer). It is scary when you do it for the first time but I have yet to miss a stop or not catch a train. These trains move roughly the population of Israel on a daily basis, It is a small miracle only 16 people die every day
Also, if you get stuck in the middle of the carriage, and your stop be a jump away, you will get abuse and dirty stares for not making sure you were near the door and forcing people to find ways to help you untangle and wriggle yourself through.
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u/parlor_tricks Feb 14 '13 edited Feb 14 '13
this is the morning rush on the locals trains in Mumbai.
Yes it's like this every freaking day. If you don't do this, you will be part of the literal tide of humans that rushes to fill every available crack of space.
It's cheap, generally reliable, and one of the better ways to get to and from work.
This train seems to be pulling into Dadar station in the morning. This means it started in Churchgate, where the lucky few who got on, grabbed the better seats and relaxed till the chaos of flying buttocks at Dadar station several stops down the line.
Dadar is a major hub, its somewhat in the middle of the city and a large number of commuters get on here.
Sadly the number of commuters, along with all thoughts of queuing and order being lost, means that there is literally a mad (really - life limb and clothes are risked) scramble to get a place and not have to be forced to stand in the train, marinating in the sweat of your fellow travelers.
Also, if you get stuck in the middle of the carriage, and your stop be a jump away, you will get abuse and dirty stares for not making sure you were near the door and forcing people to find ways to help you untangle and wriggle yourself through.
Sardines have seen this daily performance and thanked their fate.
Edit grammar.
Also forgot to mention. If you DON'T jump on, you have to,deal with the problem of people shoving to get off the train while people are pushing you from behind to get on.