The Rough Guide advises to get to the station an hour early but offers no reason why. Greater investigation finds that there can be queues at the X-ray machine and that platforms often change at the last moment. And it can take time to load up on snacks!
We were going from Jaipur Junction to Agra Fort and departure time was 08.10. We decided to leave early and the night before we asked the receptionist if there would be anyone to get us some transportation just after 7am the next day. We were assured this would be no problem because the reception was manned 24/7. As we descended the next morning we found the night manager asleep on a temporary cot on the floor. The noise of our bags woke him up and within 15 seconds he was out on the street finding a friendly rickshaw. Dropped off we sailed into the station in record time and the first obstacle was the aforementioned X-ray machine. Just throw your bags on and pick them up the other side. I don’t know what they were looking for but I reckon you could have a stick of dynamite poking out of your bag with a lit fuse and you would have been waved through. Now we were on the platform there was nothing much to do but wait for 45 minutes. A middle aged Indian bloke sidled up to us and we thought he was asking for money. We made it clear we weren’t in the mood and he seemed affronted. ‘I’m not a beggar’ he protested, ‘I’ve got something to tell you’. ‘Jesus is coming’ he asserted. ‘What train is he on’ I asked. This conversation petered out quickly and we focused on the next important thing which was where to stand.
When you buy a ticket in India and you have an allocated seat, the ticket will tell you which carriage you are in. So far, so Network Rail, but all along the platform there are overhead displays showing what carriage will be stopping in this spot. This way you know where to stand. And if I’m honest, it is more than you get in the UK. However this becomes a necessity when the platform is about a km long with a similar length train. Where these carriages stop is unique to each train so where you need to stand is only evident when yours is the next choo choo. And when ours was the next one in, what looked like an easy system became a bit stressy because to our left was the general admission carriages (sit where you like) and to our right it as D1 to D as far as you could see. And we were C2. Local knowledge directed us beyond D but that felt so far we were in a different station. Then we met someone who had done this before and we were in the right place. Turned out those overhead signs were missing in some places.
The journey was uneventful but you really don’t need to stock up with snacks because there’s someone coming down the aisle with something different every 2 minutes.
Agra has the Taj Mahal but other than that there’s not much going for it. The famed pollution is evident from many miles out. And the chaos outside the Agra Fort station reached a new high. But we made it to the hostel trouble free. And it turns out the hostel sells beer so happy days.
This one from the rooftop terrace. I call it Water Buts of Agra.
