Rahul gives unsolicited advice

Last week, I started collecting the running status of a few (<10) trains everyday. I wrote a blogpost last week about how I was collecting the data if you want to know more. Now, let's look at what I've collected so far. (Open in the following images in a new page to take a better look at which stations are the most problematic and understand the general trend better) Train 18029 - runs from Lokmanyatilak (Mumbai) to Shalimar. This train is mostly representative of what happens with the rest of the trains discussed below. There are stations enroute where the train makes up for lost time and then it loses any gains made. But, for the most part, I guess the delays are acceptable, given that they're within an hour of expected arrival time. Train 12809 - runs from Mumbai CST to Howrah JN. This train was a little surprising because it's different compared to the rest of the lot. The train almost always makes up for delays in at the start of the route. There are ...

I have a friend who was traveling from New Delhi to Guwahati and due to certain constraints, she had to take train number 12502. She had made further plans of traveling from Guwahati based on the assumption that she would reach Guwahati at the expected arrival time. You all know where this is going. The train was late and she had to make changes to her travel plans. We all have either known someone who went through this or personally went through this ourselves. Usually, trains run by the Indian Railways are not more than an hour late. There are ones who run perfectly on time too. And then there are also trains that are multiple hours late, sometimes even > 6! Which I don't think is acceptable. And because I had nothing better to do on a Sunday, I set about to do something about it. If you guys have read a few of my earlier blog posts, you know where this is going. I'm going to write some code that will help me automate something. Or get some data. Or make a plot or a map...