On my first trip to India this is what I was picturing when told we were taking the train.. In reality we had sleeper berths and nobody was hanging off
There's this book that I had to read in college called Song of Kali that paints a really fucked up scene of India where people live aside filthy aqueducts and crime is out of fucking control and the main character is a white journalist which makes him and his wife a target and they kidnap his baby and when they finally find the baby, it's dead and another person is pretending it's alive and it's stuffed with diamonds. And you're just like w.t.f.
I have seen videos of them just casually sweeping trash out of a moving train, but I have no idea how representative that stuff is. And I wouldn't exactly take the events of a horror novel at face value, either.
Agreed, but you are not allowed to say it out loud because you'll Be called a racist. I worked at a place where it was all H1B visas from India. It literally stunk the elevators and office at breakfast and lunch. And don't ask about bathrooms.
The infrastructure lift required to make double-decker rail cars would be massive. Bridges raised or tracks lowered, but there's also the fact that a lot of these people aren't paying fares, and they still may not be able to afford fares no matter how big the train is. You could add 4 stories to a train somehow and you would have people climbing on top.
Trains can really only be as long as the station if they're this busy. They need to add more trains to the schedule or force businesses to stagger hours so everyone doesn't need to catch the same one.
Yeah I don't know what can be done to get people to stop having so many kids. I mean it's not a race or region thing. If you have people piled on top of each other it's time to consider slowing it down a bit.
1. Get rid of any tax break after 2 kids. 2. Make any religion that promotes this pay HUGE taxes. 3. Education 4. More education. 5. Tax breaks for vasectomy's (I had one 30 + years ago). 6. Incentives for making a safe MALE birth control pill.
It will take decades for the population to decline. I'm 73 and when I was a kid the population of the world was 2 billion, now its over 9. Even if only 1/3 of the population bred it will be a slow decline.
Majority of them inside don't pay either. Only the middle class and up people pay for tickets, whereas they never have reason to ride these low speed local trains. They are forced to ride interstate trains because plane service is sparse between cities, you can't carry much luggage and roads are shit, drunk truck drivers may run you over. Imho, trains should run on general taxes alone. Trying to collect fare in these crowded conditions must be a fool's errand
I agree, it can't possibly be safe for young women especially. I would imagine they try to travel in packs, take alternative means of transport when possible or walk, are kept at home by parents until they can arrange a husband for them, only allowed to study locally upto whatever level is provided for fear of being raped by gangs on shady buses and trains. The parents' intention is to protect their virginity for marriage, but this poorly affects their upward mobility in education and career.
Only a select few belonging to privileged upper class, whose parents can afford to set them up with chauffeurs and cars, or live on campus or be sent to a safer foreign country or have things lined up for them in a private vocational mentorship, film industry or transition into the family business, would have any chance of being independent citizens. Tough luck for the rest, most probably don't even get to learn the official national language properly or the world standard of english
It's possible, but no longer palatable for institutions to stoop to the more effective (but unjust and unpleasant) colonial era policing styles. They used to be able to keep crowds in order and collect fares easily, the problem was that their entire strategy was the carrot and stick, minus the carrot - in short, caning the absolute shit out of anyone breaking the law or misbehaving. You'd pay your fare or regret it; NSFW https://x.com/greatandhranews/status/1926978852401652205
Brutal. What are they being punished for? The translator is broken, so I can't understand shit there. Theft? Speeding? Anyway, more freedom for police brutality never solved anything. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. The poorest day labourers and minimum wage students who need to use these overcrowded trains can't afford to pay fare. The onus for essential public services should be on the wealthiest yacht owners and such, who exploit these people hanging off trains for their labour.
Sanskrit originated from the middle east, an ancient language of some Zoroastrian civilization, more closely associated with Greek and Latin cultures through exchange. After its migration into the Indus valley, a simplified pidgin called Hindi was formed and gradually evolved, borrowing from locals. This one here is a completely different script and grammar rules from English/Sanskrit, originating from Dravidian, used by southern plateau empire. Nobody who knows Hindi can read Telugu innately
Anyway, that linguistic interest aside, apparently it was some trumped up marihuana charges, in retaliation for disagreement by these youths against corrupt police extortion by one of their members some time ago. Predatory police behaviour in action, tale as old as civilization. Some human rights organizations have flagged it and been ignored, because there is worse shit going on there and emphasized in news cycles
A lower percentage to deaths from drunk/distracted drivers in the US. Twice as many people die due to trains in India per year as die to drunk drivers/driving per year in the US. With he main difference being that India has over 4 times as many people. So about half the rate.
Yet, India has the highest pop count, as it surpassed China a while ago. Fatality rate is eclipsed by the birth-rate, and the human stupidy can thin put the herds only so much...
Either the local sensationalised or he meant Mumbai maybe? Not sure about the number in Mumbai but in Delhi current average is 6 per day (it is much better than Mumbai simply because local travel is through Metros that close fully, have barriers that don't let you get on the tracks etc. Mumbai is worse to say the least.
I’ve only been to Delhi (mostly Noida) and never got near a train but the way that pedestrians mingle with traffic blows my mind every time. Traffic in general is incredible: herds of cattle, intersections with no light or stop signs and crossing traffic, and pedestrians making their way across 6 lanes with a barrier in the middle. I’ve even seen lone cows calmly wait for a stop light to go green, cross with the light, then wait again to cross to the opposite corner from where they started.
Okay, apparently it is not much better than Mumbai which averaged at least 7 per day on its local trains in 2024. I am a little surprised although I guess Delhi does have a massive railway station with intercity trains and not locals
And about 45,000 firearms deaths each year. But we do keep count. Still doubting the Indian government has any idea how many of it's people are killed each year clinging to the outside of trains and buses.
"'fall from trains or collision with people at track' constituted majority of railway accidents (74.9 per cent) (18,480 out of 24,678) while a total of 15,878 people died due to either 'fall from trains or collision of trains with people at tracks', accounting for 72.8 per cent of total deaths in railway accidents" https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/over-21-000-deaths-in-railway-related-accidents-in-2023-data-9372155
In both cases people should be looking at the numbers as percentages because of the difference in population size; India has a population of 1.4 billion to 341 million in the US, over a billion more people. 1 traffic death per 9k people for India, compared to 1 per 8.5k people for the US, very similar. What this tells us is that taking the train in India is significantly safer than taking a car, and that road deaths are comparable between the US and India.
"safer" is pulling some insane weight in that sentence. sounds like you're also not factoring in reported sexual assault for example, and things that would deem travel conditions "unsafe"
While population is important, I think that you also need to look at car-miles driven. Deaths per 10k car miles per capita would be informative, I think.
SixSixxtySix
Bangladesh State Railways train arriving at Mymensingh Railway Station. Not India.
Shoutrr
and that's just the train. it's the same for cars, bikes and planes
hellothisispeggy
guitarfourtysix
We used to hop freight trains as kids. I'd kick off the opposite direction the train was going when jumping off. Not sure if it helped or not.
Dinwiddie
Best, and safest method.
AgamemnonsMemes
Being in that train is probably worse than being on it.
captainenhancement
Most of these are Bangladesh. Pretty sure that sign is in Bengali too.
hushpuppyextraordinaire
If they welded a couple benches on the sides, they could get a couple more layers of seats
guitarfourtysix
But then they wouldn't fit when they race down the sidewalks and through the markets.
xxFUBDxx
Bangladesh not India
Detacheddavid
Not the same? /s
Nanntuckett
Holy mother of OSHA
TheMellowMoron
ThailandExpress
no thanks, would rather drive my car
PapaParatrooper
Honest question: Why not just add more trains?!
RecurringNightmare
trains cost money, india poor, ticket cheap...
InappropriateElephant
that man on the very back got the best seat "on" the train.
Blackfinity
Roqinn
Looks to me like they need to run the trains more often and add other forms of public transport too
laurapede83
Still beats walking.
HelpfulCorn
On my first trip to India this is what I was picturing when told we were taking the train.. In reality we had sleeper berths and nobody was hanging off
medimr
India seems like a wild fucking place, man.
stereomiljac8888
Do not go to India
majortool
There's this book that I had to read in college called Song of Kali that paints a really fucked up scene of India where people live aside filthy aqueducts and crime is out of fucking control and the main character is a white journalist which makes him and his wife a target and they kidnap his baby and when they finally find the baby, it's dead and another person is pretending it's alive and it's stuffed with diamonds. And you're just like w.t.f.
medimr
I have seen videos of them just casually sweeping trash out of a moving train, but I have no idea how representative that stuff is. And I wouldn't exactly take the events of a horror novel at face value, either.
majortool
A lot of the background for the novel is accurate which is why this book was prescribed in a university class.
rigello
/a/EAOWDoy#yFuEluV How about news article?
MacTually
I guess I understand people's reactions.
To most this just looks like a third world country doing things backwards.
If I had the option I would most definitely ride a train this way some days.
It's like if it was available at one point people may have just worked to keep it an available option they didn't mind.
Just because something looks different or has a different process doesn't mean it's less, broken or trash.
wadatahmydamie
This post has probably a day’s worth of casual racism in the comments too
JRaven419
Then there's one of those things that clears snow off the top to clear the people off the top
Aranon1183
Do you still have to pay for riding on top?
stonebreaker6
TheWeebleWobler
I'll take the next one.
Styxwash
They really need more trains.
whatsisname
"Nah, we'll just spend even more money on building huge highways that can move 1/200th as many people" - people in authority basically everywhere
Styxwash
Besides where I live.
Filanwizard
India probably needs to invest into fast and frequent electric trains. They clearly have the ridership to justify it.
SpicyGoober
I just imagine the inside of that has got to smell so incredibly bad
JRaven419
Like curry?
RubbleTrouser
Agreed, but you are not allowed to say it out loud because you'll Be called a racist. I worked at a place where it was all H1B visas from India. It literally stunk the elevators and office at breakfast and lunch. And don't ask about bathrooms.
wadatahmydamie
You’ll especially be called racist because this isn’t even India
Emjayen
India, the only place where locomotives are the apex predator.
wadatahmydamie
This isn’t India
HamAdvocate
It blows my mind that everyone is just ok with this
TrashPacker
I'm not really sure that they are...
TacoPoweredHelicopter
You have to get home somehow. It's not really just about being "ok" with it.
wfo87Stang
Guess you haven’t seen the tractor trailer road side clips or the construction/industry safety vids yet eh?
BeaverOnFire
I'm not sure what you're complaining about. Everyone is wearing the required safety sandals, except those who aren't.
thedarkcanuck
I'm a Canadian truck driver, I live that every day
an0therthr0waway
lately they've been focusing on constructing more public restrooms, and getting people to use them. Maybe double deck railcars will be next?
Heelcat70
They have double decker toilets? Impressive.
HamAdvocate
The infrastructure lift required to make double-decker rail cars would be massive. Bridges raised or tracks lowered, but there's also the fact that a lot of these people aren't paying fares, and they still may not be able to afford fares no matter how big the train is. You could add 4 stories to a train somehow and you would have people climbing on top.
zigbigidorlu
Or, you know, more train cars.
BarryTheCyborg
Trains can really only be as long as the station if they're this busy. They need to add more trains to the schedule or force businesses to stagger hours so everyone doesn't need to catch the same one.
LeekofLegend
We NEED to fix the future
Newdonster
Don't breed.
AHundredBillionBottles
They said "Fix" the future [fix : Sterilizing]
AnythingMuchShorter
Yeah I don't know what can be done to get people to stop having so many kids. I mean it's not a race or region thing. If you have people piled on top of each other it's time to consider slowing it down a bit.
Newdonster
1. Get rid of any tax break after 2 kids. 2. Make any religion that promotes this pay HUGE taxes. 3. Education 4. More education. 5. Tax breaks for vasectomy's (I had one 30 + years ago). 6. Incentives for making a safe MALE birth control pill.
AHundredBillionBottles
The birthrate has dramatically gone down everywhere women have been educated, empowered, and achieved greater levels of equality.
Newdonster
It will take decades for the population to decline. I'm 73 and when I was a kid the population of the world was 2 billion, now its over 9. Even if only 1/3 of the population bred it will be a slow decline.
hushpuppyextraordinaire
Do the top riders have to pay to ride?
Heelcat70
"You'll have to purchase a ticket for the roof. The cow catcher is sold out
FortifiedWhine
No, that's the point. Poverty, overcrowding and such...
FellaWithUmbrella
For that scenic ride they’ll pay extra! /s
RecurringNightmare
thats the first class with the fresh air and getting a tan...
MySushi
Majority of them inside don't pay either. Only the middle class and up people pay for tickets, whereas they never have reason to ride these low speed local trains. They are forced to ride interstate trains because plane service is sparse between cities, you can't carry much luggage and roads are shit, drunk truck drivers may run you over. Imho, trains should run on general taxes alone. Trying to collect fare in these crowded conditions must be a fool's errand
InkyBlinkyPinkyAndClyde
What do women do? I can't imagine it's safe being inside one of these train cars.
MySushi
I agree, it can't possibly be safe for young women especially. I would imagine they try to travel in packs, take alternative means of transport when possible or walk, are kept at home by parents until they can arrange a husband for them, only allowed to study locally upto whatever level is provided for fear of being raped by gangs on shady buses and trains. The parents' intention is to protect their virginity for marriage, but this poorly affects their upward mobility in education and career.
MySushi
Only a select few belonging to privileged upper class, whose parents can afford to set them up with chauffeurs and cars, or live on campus or be sent to a safer foreign country or have things lined up for them in a private vocational mentorship, film industry or transition into the family business, would have any chance of being independent citizens. Tough luck for the rest, most probably don't even get to learn the official national language properly or the world standard of english
unluckyandbored
It is not. Many women are sexually assaulted every year on trains in India.
circlebreaker
It's possible, but no longer palatable for institutions to stoop to the more effective (but unjust and unpleasant) colonial era policing styles. They used to be able to keep crowds in order and collect fares easily, the problem was that their entire strategy was the carrot and stick, minus the carrot - in short, caning the absolute shit out of anyone breaking the law or misbehaving. You'd pay your fare or regret it; NSFW https://x.com/greatandhranews/status/1926978852401652205
MySushi
Brutal. What are they being punished for? The translator is broken, so I can't understand shit there. Theft? Speeding? Anyway, more freedom for police brutality never solved anything. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. The poorest day labourers and minimum wage students who need to use these overcrowded trains can't afford to pay fare. The onus for essential public services should be on the wealthiest yacht owners and such, who exploit these people hanging off trains for their labour.
circlebreaker
Yeah, it is. Alleged crime unknown, I don't speak or read Hindi either, it's just the best example I could find on short notice.
MySushi
Sanskrit originated from the middle east, an ancient language of some Zoroastrian civilization, more closely associated with Greek and Latin cultures through exchange. After its migration into the Indus valley, a simplified pidgin called Hindi was formed and gradually evolved, borrowing from locals.
This one here is a completely different script and grammar rules from English/Sanskrit, originating from Dravidian, used by southern plateau empire. Nobody who knows Hindi can read Telugu innately
MySushi
Anyway, that linguistic interest aside, apparently it was some trumped up marihuana charges, in retaliation for disagreement by these youths against corrupt police extortion by one of their members some time ago. Predatory police behaviour in action, tale as old as civilization. Some human rights organizations have flagged it and been ignored, because there is worse shit going on there and emphasized in news cycles
OhIfIMust
How many serious accidents & fatalities occur every year because of this?
WholeWheatBunnyHugger
Preliminary 2025 data estimates approximately 36,640 traffic fatalities in the U.S.
2B4UALL
Percentage wise must be very low
ElbowDeepInUserSub
More than 3.
rolliefingers
CptRobotNinja
This is the free unregulated market at work
thedarkcanuck
Yes
Idontneedrealfacts
Some
Malsbury
Well 1st you'd have to report an accident to the security officer. And I don't see any of them. So officially? 1 or 2.
kahlas
A lower percentage to deaths from drunk/distracted drivers in the US. Twice as many people die due to trains in India per year as die to drunk drivers/driving per year in the US. With he main difference being that India has over 4 times as many people. So about half the rate.
mikeatike
Yes
MrOne2
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1OHF1Z2tpa25nbmV2cG00djltcnNscXJvbzhiMmpreGZxeHh2cWRjcyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/oDorLdnVX5dp9lgvlT/200w.webp
SalmonTheWise
And how many hilarious accidents?
TyrannusEquus
They do inadvertently produce a lot of safety footage. Unfortunately as bad examples.
woodworkerf
When I visited in 2015, a local told me about 40 deaths per say, just in Delhi!
TheWyldeCard
Yet, India has the highest pop count, as it surpassed China a while ago. Fatality rate is eclipsed by the birth-rate, and the human stupidy can thin put the herds only so much...
OhIfIMust
Jeez…
slack3rdav3
how often is it said per day? ;)
airwoman
Either the local sensationalised or he meant Mumbai maybe? Not sure about the number in Mumbai but in Delhi current average is 6 per day (it is much better than Mumbai simply because local travel is through Metros that close fully, have barriers that don't let you get on the tracks etc. Mumbai is worse to say the least.
avastmehearty
I’ve only been to Delhi (mostly Noida) and never got near a train but the way that pedestrians mingle with traffic blows my mind every time. Traffic in general is incredible: herds of cattle, intersections with no light or stop signs and crossing traffic, and pedestrians making their way across 6 lanes with a barrier in the middle. I’ve even seen lone cows calmly wait for a stop light to go green, cross with the light, then wait again to cross to the opposite corner from where they started.
airwoman
Okay, apparently it is not much better than Mumbai which averaged at least 7 per day on its local trains in 2024. I am a little surprised although I guess Delhi does have a massive railway station with intercity trains and not locals
TheobromineAddict
Life is cheap there. That probably doesn't get recorded nor investigated.
DarwinsAgain
berlinson
Almost as cheap as it is in the USA
Fanner50
In 2022, there were 42,795 motor vehicle fatalities in US.
Life is cheap there.
TheobromineAddict
And about 45,000 firearms deaths each year. But we do keep count. Still doubting the Indian government has any idea how many of it's people are killed each year clinging to the outside of trains and buses.
Fanner50
As you’ve cited, tracking the numbers is a waste of time. It doesn’t do a damned thing about the deaths.
Ankylosaur
"'fall from trains or collision with people at track' constituted majority of railway accidents (74.9 per cent) (18,480 out of 24,678) while a total of 15,878 people died due to either 'fall from trains or collision of trains with people at tracks', accounting for 72.8 per cent of total deaths in railway accidents" https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/over-21-000-deaths-in-railway-related-accidents-in-2023-data-9372155
takemetoyourleader
Divide by about 500 to compare to US...
OhIfIMust
That's lower than I would have guessed, and utterly horrifying.
WackyWavingInflatableArmFlailingTubman
If this doesn't stop we will slowly breed a human immune to trains /j
BillHubbard
Less than the 40.000 car related deaths yearly in the US.
trikks
Well India have 170 000+ deaths per year related to road safety, that's not including railroads.
takemetoyourleader
So that would be about 340 deaths in US, they have 500 times the inhabitants.
GuyWithDog
Ahm... No. They have about 5 times, more like 4,3 times the inhabitants of the USA.
Rabeandre
You say that as if India doesn't also have car related deaths. 2021 they apparently had 155,000 of them, according to their own government statistics
Heelcat70
Our attorney in India was killed when his car hit a water buffalo. Lots of road hazards there.
CatrosQuatro
In both cases people should be looking at the numbers as percentages because of the difference in population size; India has a population of 1.4 billion to 341 million in the US, over a billion more people. 1 traffic death per 9k people for India, compared to 1 per 8.5k people for the US, very similar. What this tells us is that taking the train in India is significantly safer than taking a car, and that road deaths are comparable between the US and India.
whatsisname
"comparable" are you kidding, road death stats in India are way worse than the USA. And the USA is already terrible.
wagnus
"safer" is pulling some insane weight in that sentence. sounds like you're also not factoring in reported sexual assault for example, and things that would deem travel conditions "unsafe"
OhIfIMust
Git outta here with your fancy science, all understanding stuff and whatnot!
pgdave
While population is important, I think that you also need to look at car-miles driven. Deaths per 10k car miles per capita would be informative, I think.