The passengers gather expectantly along the track. Railway policemen take positions, shouting safety precautions before a whistle blows in from a distance. Everybody looks west. And then it comes. Painted in white and red, the Valley’s first train on its maiden journey from Srinagar to Anantnag, turns round the bend and pulls in at the station.

The sight of the train sets the crowd into motion. People rush inside the waiting train and it's not long before it lets off a whistle and sets off again.

“So, this is the train. It’s amazing,” says 60-year-old Hajira Begum from Rajwansher, the village that hosts the first station on this line. The train leaves the village at 7.10 am, crosses Budgam in 15 minutes before arriving at Srinagar at 7.35 am for the one-hour onward travel to Anantnag. “It is cheap and it is comfortable too,” she adds.

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flagged off Kashmir’s first-ever train on October 11, nobody expected the train to touch the hearts of so many people and so quickly become a part of the Valley’s everyday routine.

Passengers on the train look on at the sights that pass them by. But it is only when the snow capped peaks appear, emerging from their slumberous silhouettes into the morning light, that the train seems to have finally come home to Kashmir.

The experience is unencumbered by the reigning political turmoil in the Valley, visible even on the day the Prime Minister came to inaugurate the train. There is much good-humoured teasing and banter between the railway police personnel and the commuters.

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