Great Railway Journeys of the World, Deccan - India

Radio Times

13 November 1980

Great Railway Journeys of the World
Deccan - India

Armed with only a rail pass and a notion of destination, writer Brian Thomson boards the 85 Down Madras Mail and sets off

on a fascinating 5-day journey from the noise and heat of Bombay to the peaceful, palm-fringed paradise of Cochin.

Railway World

Great Railway Journeys of the World, Deccan - India

Before any filming could begin, a researcher was sent to discover just what there was on the ground - and so Ian McNulty went to India to find a suitable route to film.
   He began as part of a TEFS railway enthusiasts group travelling from Bombay to Darjeeling, which he felt could have made a film in itself! However, a journey across Northern India had been the subject of earlier TV films so, having met all the extraordinarily helpful people at the Railway Bhavan (Headquarters) in Delhi, Ian McNulty set off, as the Indians themselves say, in search of Paradise - going south.
   But first he had to get a birth on the train out of Bombay. It seemed there was a queue for everything except for what he wanted. After standing in the wrong lines for three and a half hours and having had his travellers cheques declared unacceptable, he adopted a new tack. He sat on the desk of a supervisor amid the usual multitude of papers and refused

to get up until matters were sorted out!
   During his independent wanderings in search of material for the film, Ian discovered a modern Hindu temple with an immaculate train mounted in the middle of it!
   The pilgrimage is at the centre of the Hindu religion and the people here felt that as a modern pilgrimage is normally by train it should feature in their temple.
    On leaving the temple with thousands of other pilgrims the was so crowded that Ian had to take to the roof with hundreds of other travellers.
    As night fell, there was one BBC Researcher with smuts in his hair from a centaurian steam locomotive built in Glasgow, heading further and further into the unknown. This is hardly the image one has of refined BBC behaviour!
   Naturally, the train broke down and during the four hours that the crew spent repairing it, the whole 'train community' descended on the local tea vendors stall.