Rail Fanning

Children are fascinated by trains. It’s captivating for them to watch a tiny little speck approaching them gradually, taking on a monstrous size and slowly disappearing into oblivion, rolling on the never-ending parallel lines and the rhythmic sound of the rolling wheels, makes it all the more dramatic! I wasn’t any different! I would stand away safely from the tracks for hours together watching the trains come and go. It was my favourite past time. Each passing train would give me a thrilling experience! Visiting our maternal cousins in Ambala, Haryana used to be a delight, since they lived in a Railway Colony!!! I would get to see so much at the Railway Shed; steam engines, diesel engines, goods train wagons, fuel tanker wagons and much more. Once I was lucky enough to see a huge steam engine being flipped manually on a turntable by an army of labourers! What a treat! While growing up, trains became my favourite mode of travel. The most memorable journeys were when we used to travel long distance from Delhi to Mumbai during summer vacations. The highlight was to see the change of engines at Vadodara Station, where an electric engine would take over from the diesel one. The electric engine’s pressure horn would terrify us! Almost three decades later, while driving down one of the highways near Delhi, my 12 year old nephew insisted that we stop at a railway crossing for him to have a look at a train passing by. That very moment my love for trains resurfaced and I was at it again- this time video graphing the experience. While uploading this small video on YouTube, I stumbled upon hordes of other similar videos proclaiming their allegiance to IRFCA. I went on google to find out that IRFCA meant, Indian Railways Fan Club, (‘A’ being symbolic of its founding which was done in USA by a few Indians out on foreign job assignments). IRFCA describes itself as a hobby group, for discussing all aspects of Railways in India. The website www.irfca.org has comprehensive information about Indian Railways (which even the official website of Indian Railways does not have) such as its history, its operational, technical details, train travelogues, images, videos and latest news about the development of Railways in India. There are now about 8000 fans interacting with each other on the minutest of details of Indian Railways. Interestingly IRFCA has been holding Annual Conventions since 2006, in cities which are considered to be Railway hubs in the country.