Abhinav Sharma is a supervisor on the 08-275 Unimat 3S and travels all over India for work: “I usually work far away from home. My home is Andhra Pradesh: by train it takes two days to get there from where we are right now, for example. Obviously I miss my family; I only see them twice a year. In our job, you don't get home that often, so you have to learn to live with that.”
Abhinav and his young colleagues in particular are frequently homesick. That explains their motto: if your own family isn’t there, the team takes over. “If a colleague is sad, we come together and give them a hug: I’m your family, and you’re mine. Let go of your worries. We're like brothers from different mothers.”
Sometimes we work in 50-degree weather
he fact that Abhinav still enjoys his job has a lot to do with his enthusiasm for technology: “My father is a technician. That's why I've been interested in all kinds of equipment since I was a child, and from an early age I grew into the career of a machine operator. What also makes the job very demanding are the extreme weather conditions in India: “Sometimes we work in Rajasthan in 50-degree weather, and then maybe in Delhi, where it’s 10 degrees in winter, which can be extremely challenging for the whole team and also for the machines. There are difficulties from time to time, but you have to deal with them and move forward.”
As demanding as the job can be, there is no doubt in Abhinav's mind that their daily work makes a huge contribution to India and its people: “The population is huge and trains are very important. If I want to go somewhere from here, a flight is very expensive; not everyone can afford it. But trains are affordable. Expansion of the railway is a project that will change a lot in India.”
NDLS, the largest railway station in New Delhi, handles up to 700,000 passengers a day alone, with destinations to and from all over India. The numbers continue to rise. It takes people like Abhinav and his colleagues to keep this gigantic rail system, with its thousands of kilometres of track, running and constantly expanding: “When we’re done with our work, all these people will be able to take their trains all over the country again. That makes us very happy and proud. Whenever I see a train, I'm happy and think: ‘We made the track!’”
