And now Rotary meetings on a train
It’s not any train… it is the very popular Deccan Queen Express, on which thousands of passengers commute daily between Mumbai and Pune, and which was started in 1930 in the British era as a weekend train.
Always an innovative District in many ways, RID 3131 recently chartered the First Moving club — the Rotary Club of Pune Deccan Queen —
actually on this historic train. “This is perhaps the first club in the world which meets in a train,” said DG Vivek Aranha, who paid an official visit to the club on November 20.
Every Thursday this club has a weekly meeting in the special bogie (reserved for Pass holders). This moving Rotary club has 25 members at the moment, and they invite prominent citizen travelling in the train as speakers.
According to the Wikipedia, the train was initially a weekly service and its first journey was from Calyan (now Kalyan) to Pune. But it soon became a daily service starting from Bombay Victoria Terminus (now renamed Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus CSTM). One of the longest running trains on the Indian Railways, it has never run on steam power, having used electric locomotives from the onset. Occasionally, it was given diesel locomotives in case of original locomotive failure.
This train claims many “firsts”— India’s first superfast train, the first long distance electric hauled passenger train, first to have a ‘Ladies Only’ car, and the first vestibuled trains.
It is fitting that a train with such history and pedigree is now witness to several community service projects done by this club — health check up camps for porters and Railway staff as well as infrastructure improvements on Pune Station for passengers. The club is planning fellowship meetings in the city (once a month) so that family members will also know Rotary.
