Satabdi

A waiter in a well tailored black suit welcomes you inside. From there onwards, the service for the next five hours is just immaculate!

Once you are seated,within few minutes, the always smiling waiter serves you mineral water, juice and some snacks. After another round of hot tomato soup and croissant, you are served with a mouth watering meal that would match any best restaurant in the city. Other attendants are all well dressed, well mannered and are there for any assistance you would need.

This is no description about any new restaurant in town, but the Indian Railways's Satabdi Express plying between Bangalore and Chennai. Even an -otherwise regularly- soiled toilets looked so clean and hygienic. There were paper towels, soap dispensers...

Once I got down in Chennai after a little nap, I was thinking about the last train journey I had from London to Paris in a TGV. That experience had lingered on to me for quite some days. The coupe, the seating arrangements, the service and the French cuisine! Who would have thought that Indian railways which is a public sector undertaking, could give you services that you would want to share it with others? If not for the monstrous looking boggies and cramped compartments and the dark glass windows separating you from the outside world, I think this could beat any services in the world. And all this for a mere INR 560! ( Euro 10!)

Bangalore GP 2007