Starting a journey without knowing where it will end has its problems. When I set out with Nick Lera, a remarkable cameraman-director and an authority on railways, to make a film called Steam's Indian Summer, we could not be sure where steam engines still ran.
The last known steam-hauled express had run from the railway junction of Jalandhar, in Punjab. The only steam we found there was a wonderful Heath-Robinson contraption, a coal crane with no coal to lift any longer, operated for us by a railway worker who explained, 'I am the superintendent of steam locos without a loco.' Standing on a rusty turntable on which the majestic steam locomotives that hauled historic trains such as the Frontier Mail and the Punjab Mail had changed direction, a former steam driver talked scornfully of diesel and electric locomotives. 'Anyone can drive one of those,' he said. 'To drive a steam engine you need four eyes, two in the back of your head as well as the two in the front, there's so much going on all the time.'
When we reached Delhi we visited the Railway Museum. I was filmed standing beside one of the sturdy little engines that are still pulling trains up the mountainside to Darjeeling, my favourite Indian hill-station. It is my favourite partly because I used to travel on the narrow-gauge railway to school, partly because my father was a director of that railway, and partly because of the magnificent view of the Himalaya seen from the town. On top of all that, of course, there are the picturesque Darjeeling tea gardens that produce the champagne of teas.
In Delhi's Railway Museum, I also sat in one of the erstwhile maharaja's own luxurious personal coaches and talked to the chairperson of the Railway Board. He told me steam had to go because, mighty though they appeared to be, steam engines could not pull trains long enough to accommodate all those who wanted to travel by rail. I was very happy to be reassured by the chairperson that India was one country where there was no question of rail traffic being in decline. He also said that steam engines could not match diesel or electric for speed.