Good Evening and LHB problems

The journey from BCT to NDLS had just started on the 2951 at 1655. Soon the waiter came up to us in our LWACCW (thats the code for the new 2AC LHB coaches). He greeted each passenger with a warm "Good Evening" and gave us the days newspaper. It was good that they gave each one a different one, so that we could share more papers, rather than having the same copy all over the place. I got a copy of "The Hindu". He then proceeded to take our preferences for veg or non-veg dinner and the next days breakfast. I was sure surprised that such courtesy is shown on the Indian Railways. This beahviour is probably reserved for only the Rajdhanis and Shatabdis (they charge more too, and probably the greetings are therefore not free too). I also observed that they were all wearing IRCTC uniforms. On other trains the in-coach service is all out-sourced and those waiters and attendants dont give a damn.

Now about the LHB coaches. LHB stands for Linke Hoffman Busch (LHB, now part of Alstom). Some German company perhaps. A few observations about them:

• The electrical machinery in the coaches takes so much of space that theyve reduced the number of toilets from 4 to 3 in each coach.
• The space between two LHB coaches is about 15 inches, as compared to over three feet thats there between other regular passenger coaches.
• The LHB coaches have no buffers but have a large number of pipes connected between two coaches. (more than 10 perhaps).
• The LHB coaches sure seem to shake more. We would have these two strong jerks everytime the train notched up speed. But this could also be due to a faulty WAP5. For I observed these "jerks" only on the way back between NDLS and BRC (the stretch thats taken care by a WAP5).
• Theyve got electrical charging points near the upper berths for people to charge their mobile phones.
• The toilets are something new - they have this aircraft kind of doors and the urinating area also leads to some kind of storage chamber. Which invariably gets clogged. On my journey, at least once I saw the toilet overflowing with urine. This cant happen in the older style of toilets where the urine and other things fall down on the tracks. It could never "flood" up. Talk of modernisation - perhaps this is the Laloo way of being modern - have overflowing toilets on the Rajdhani.
• For drawing water in the toilets, you have to press a illuminated green button. Then wait. Soon a trickle of water commences and you need to do your thing in that duration. Probably a controlled quota of water for each request to the "Water Server". It sometimes looks as though you might get a electrical shock or something, since the water is coming out of a geyser kind of contraption. I wonder what happens when all of this electrical gadgetry fails. There wouldnt be an alternate way to draw water. Perhaps theyd fill up drums in the passageway of the coaches and keep a sign up there which says "Sorry for the inconvenience".
• The windows and look and livery of the coahes is sure to be admired. Also the space between the two linings of glass on the windows is quite less, compared to an inch in older AC coach windows.

These LHB's have been made at Kapurthala (in Punjab) and not in Germany. It looks as if the LHB's have some basic design flaws and probably have not been adapted for Indian conditions. Or else our boys havent understood the "modern" design and hence have goofed up during maintenance and/or manufacture of the same designs at Kapurthala. In the recent past, too there have been several reports of problems on the LHB rakes - coaches getting decoupled, small fires below the coaches etc. These are serious issues and can lead to safety problems in the future, if not tackeled at this stage.

And in the 2951/2 the attendants wouldnt let you open the doors while the train is in motion. Else theyd pile up the beddings and trash near the doors (there doesnt seem to be space allocated for beddings and trash elsewhere in the coach) , so you cant open them easily.