Daund

FOOD RAILWAY

Nostalgic Memories

By

VIKRAM Karve

When I was a little boy I have traveled extensively throughout India by trains, and something I looked forward to during my travels was the food delicious, the distinctiveness of railways cuisine in various restaurant dining cars and trains prestige and railway refreshment.

Unfortunately, today we have "normalized" packaged food - the inimitable dining experience exciting sitting in cars every restaurant serves a unique cuisine has disappeared and today the one-one days ousted cars pantry where can not cook and pack bland food cold and you can sit comfortably at the table and enjoy a relaxing meal freshly prepared hot.

I remember the delicious experience of eating in the dining car of the famous Calcutta Mail via Nagpur 1Dn/2up watching the scenic landscape through large windows opening. I think this car as the best restaurant menu - a variety of meals and the elite of a la carte dishes, and even an impressive full English-style tea set though typical railway thick white crockery.

How can I forget those hot nutritious cutlets, baked beans on toast, omelets and delicious in the Deccan Queen to look out the window at the picturesque spectacle of beautiful twinkling lights Khopoli far below the Western Ghats the mist, or piping hot fresh Thalis GT Express and Continental healthy meals in the dining car of the Frontier Mail train sped into the beautiful plains and deserts to Delhi. Some trains had Metre gauge "Royal dining car too, where you can enjoy a leisurely meal, vibrating Metre gauge style, in a peaceful atmosphere.

I remember that many important trains on the Southern Railway and South Central Railway has not received food or dining cars, but delicious hot meal in ceramic cutlery has been served in your compartment excellent buffets stations like [Madras curry mutton and rice Erode, Salem, Jollarpettai, and lip smacking tasty spicy chicken biryani from Guntakal, Cudappah, and Vijaywada Waltair]. You can eat hot food without haste as cutlery was taken to the next station for trains stopped every hour, then. The same thing has been with the North, Northeast and railways NF I think, where many trains have dining cars.

Even the railway refreshment rooms at railway stations railway served a unique cuisine. At Churchgate, Mumbai, Mezzainine food stall floor served delicious meals and snacks like the old world refreshments Rooms in Chennai (Madras and Central), Mumbai CST (VT then), Old Delhi, Howrah, Lucknow, Kalyan and Pune where one can enjoy a hearty English breakfast with cornflakes et al. And there were many tiny refreshment as in Igatpuri and Daund where you could hop in a mutton biryani fast while the engines were changed.

And how could I ever forget those nostalgic memories of food in a picturesque train station, Rampur Hat on the loop of how Sahibganj Eastern Railway in the 1960s. I remember the best thing about the station was Rampur Hat REFRESHMENT - indeed, the railway REFRESHMENT was the best restaurant city in the days and the only decent one where we could go with families.

Two major trains stop for meals at Rampur Hat - Darjeeling Mail [Sealdah to New Jalpaiguri] and Upper India Express [Sealdah to Delhi], and while the guests have enjoyed their meal steam engines too, but I overcame . I wonder how Rampur Hat station is now and if the bar is still as famous as i.