'Basic facilities in trains versus posh railway stations' asks a confused KJS Chatrath

What is the function of a train? To carry people (and goods) from one fixed place to another fixed place. The fixed places are the railway stations. 

One arrives at a station maybe half an hour earlier and at the destination one leaves the station withing 15 minutes. The duration of the train journey may be from an hour to half a day or even 24 hours.

I travel by train quite extensively. Recently on 26th December 2022, I took a train from Bhubaneswar to Bolangir in Odisha. I travelled by a chair car and my PNR number was 6512554474. It was a six hour journey so a visit to the toilet was unavoidable. And this is what I found: 




Now tell me what is more important and needs priority in improvement plans- station or train? I am quite certain that limited funds must be used for improving the trains and not for making the railway stations 'world class'.

The problem is that my friends the opinion makers do not travel by rail and are unaware of the condition of the trains. I read in a newspaper over a year ago that Railways have authorised their top rung officers to travel by plane, ostensibly to save time!

My friends tell me that I have not understood the process as the idea is to monetize the land of railway stations and use the money so  earned for improving the trains!

I understand, and please do correct me if I am wrong, that blankets supplied in the railway compartments are got cleaned once in six months. Since my friends don't travel by trains they  would not be knowing about rats and cockroaches in trains.

And while trying to book a berth in AC two tier Rajdhani from Nizamuddin N. Delhi to Chennai Central,  I discovered that it is priced at Rs. 4690 and the AC First class costs Rs.7150 while the air fare for the same destination is Rs.5863.  

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