Carlotta sent me a wonderful slideshow of the First Class Blue Train of South Africa and it got me thinking about my life's train journeys. The longest train trip I ever took was from Kerala to Bombay and was something like 36 hours but I really can't remember. I was in a bunk for most of the trip with two wooden carved and authentic Hindu temple stanchions and a 16 kilogram rosewood carving of a male and female elephant kind of trunks reaching and touching each other.
The most amazing train trip I ever took was with Lynn on the Nilgiri Mountain Railroad from Ooty to Mettupalayam in Tamil Nadu. I found an interesting video which was apparently filmed on the roof of that train called Chaiyya Chaiyya. It should give you a sense of its majestic passage. Wikipedia describes it as, "The 'Nilagiri Passenger' train covers a distance of 26 mi (41.8 km),travels through 208 curves, 16 tunnels, and 250 bridges.The uphill journey takes around 290 minutes (4.8 hours), and the downhill journey takes 215 minutes (3.6 hours) It has the steepest track in Asia with a maximum gradient of 8.33%" The song itself has quite a message as well with English subtitles by clicking on CC.
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