The inimitable Berjis Desai slips up every time he tells a story involving the railways. He has once again suffered "The engine driver’s curse” (Navsari Tales, Parsiana, February 21-March 6, 2021). Navsari was on the Bombay, Baroda & Central India
Railway, not the Great Indian Peninsula. It was never a crew change station nor did it have a running shed for changing express train engines. Those were done at Bulsar or Surat.
And I am surprised about the story of the driver regularly jumping from his own engine at Maroli and leaving the "senior foreman” to drive it to Navsari. There was and is nothing like a senior foreman in an engine’s crew — there was the driver, a fireman and an oiler. No self-respecting driver would ever allow either of those to drive his engine. And, finally, there was no Bombay Mail between Navsari and Bombay. Indeed, no Mail train ever stopped at Navsari. But our trustee-sahib- to-be has every liberty to drive full speed through red signals considering the entertaining journey he takes us on every fortnight.
As for the story about the bridge that was washed away, it is true but I do not know if the protagonist of the story was the driver of that train. It was the Ferozepur-Bombay Central Janta Express and the bridge in question was over the Damanganga, about five kilometers from Vapi station, from which the train had just started after a stop. It was raining heavily and the train had not attained much speed before the driver saw a permanent way majdoor (workman) alongside the railway tracks furiously flagging him to stop.
Drive on, Berjis. With even more steam in your pistons and more toot in your whistle. (Bawajis, no innuendo intended!) NAWSHIR MIRZA
nhm@nawshirmirza.com
Berjis Desai replies:
My source was my grandmother who passed away in 1986 at the age of 93. I am speechless at Nawshir Mirza’s eye for detail. The story of the driver jumping off the train though, I have heard from many others. That "Navsari Tales” are slightly fictionalized is my only defence. The next time I write anything on trains and the railways I will first verify with my friend whom I truly adore as almost saintly despite his brilliance at work and his selfless service to many a nongovernmental organization.