I am away from office for two days now. I was thinking that I have got addicted to usual office routine, communications, computers, internet etc., but no withdrawls symptoms here :). Its a good thing. Today is Friday but more relaxed that Sunday as I have nothing to do but to wait till evening for something. Children are clapping and wishing Happy B'day to one of their 'collegue :)' Place is National Rail Museum, New Delhi. A nice place for rail enthusiats. Vintage engines and coaches dating back to early 1800s are displayed here. A special rail coach which was made for Prince of England (who later became King Edward VII) in 1875 is still in a very good condition. Life like statues of prince and his orderly are displayed in the coach. Possibly world's smallest steam engine is displayed here.

Mono rail on one rail line with support of a wheel on other side to run on ground or pavement made specially for it is still functional. It has sitting capacity for 8 and runs only on Sundays and one ride costs Indian Rupees 20 (US$ 0.50).

There is another toy train with 5 coaches and provision of 40 seats in train. Today's ordinary buses have seating capacity of 52 seats and trains can accomodate more than thousand!!! Quite a lot of progress mankind has made :) But these are vintage machines and quite valuable. I did not think that I'll need camera on this small travel, I really miss taking pics here :(. A small joy ride in this toy train costs Indian Rupees 10 (US$ 0.25) and it takes a round of periphery of museum in about 5 minutes. This joy train runs on a about two feet wide track with enough speed to match normal pace of human running. What makes toy train run? The same old engine? But no steam here. I asked the driver and wow .. its engine of TATA 407, a commercial vehicle popular in India. Plateform of Toy train is good and a book shop of National Book Trust India is made on plateform in a vintage rail coach. Bookshop .. hmmm it was there and I had to buy a book and another was bought because salesman did not have change for currency :)).

There are another 25-30 vintage trains displayed in the museum here. A number of trains are still functional or may be all of them can be functional as they are on tracks and maintained in shining condition.

Yesterday I travelled in Metro Rail in New Delhi which is comparable with modern world's best trains for city commuters. Its nice to get experience of both old and ultra modern trains in same city. Hopefully I'll make another visit to this city soon, which earlier I used to shun beacuse of its crowd, crazy traffic and pollution. Things are improving here now and the change is visible.

Indian Railways has perphaps world's largest rail network and of course its world's biggest employer, employing more than 10 million people!!! From a deficit organisation it has become one of government's best milking cow in less than 3 years, thanks to present Railway Minister.

A bike ride with my father. I was sitting on fuel tank in front!!