Early start to catch the Shatabdi Express at New Delhi Railway Station to Kolka (The name of the town is derived from the goddess Kali - the Thugee Sect used to worship and sacrifice their victims to her) via Kurukshetra, Ambala, and Chandigarh, covering a distance of 269 km in a span of 4 hours 5 min. The train runs at an average speed of 65 km per hour (including halts). It is a "super fast", fully electric hauled train, with a top speed of 135 kilometers per hour. The train is hauled by a matching WAP-7 of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh electric locomotive shed. The train comprises 10 AC Chair Cars, 2 AC First Class coach & 2 End-On-Generation Cars.
Waiting on the platform for the arrival of our train, I saw something that is one of my vivid childhood memories of daily life in India - a corpse, wrapped in white muslin cloth, laid out flat on the platform, with a young man sitting alonside. I presumed he was accompaning a deceased relative back to his/her village for cremation. I wondered where the corpse was going to be put in the train - hopefully not in a seat in our carriage ....
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