One of the precious rights that we the Nepalis have been denied or deprived of even in the 21st century is rail systems. So much so that even in the Tarai, which is all plain, we have practically no trains. Where else shall we have, them, and when?

If we go by a citation by Paul Simon: “Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance,” does it make any sense to us? Not at all, simply because trains don’t come near us. If we hear anything in the distance, until recently it was gun firing between the army and the Maoists, and now, earsplitting horns chosen by deaf people.

I dislike writing the following sentences. When I searched for ‘trains in Nepal’ in google, the result was awful: it gave absolutely nothing! I did the same thing on Switzerland, an equally mountainous country and some interesting information popped up: Switzerland’s rail network is one of the world’s most densely concentrated — in spite of extremely mountainous terrains — and some of these railways are simply links between two villages!

Eureka! That was food for fantasy. I sat back, relaxed and got into some wild woolgathering: a fantastic railway connecting Landruk and Ghandruk, a tunnel with cut-edge technology linking Manang and Muktinath, a glittering miniature tramway between Khokna and Bungmati, so on and so forth. Why not? After all, if Switzerland offers any proven cases, mountains can by no means impede railway progress. Only lack of people-friendly polity is an inhibition.

When one comes out of woolgathering, only disappointment remains. Ditto in my case. I was terribly upset when I had a flashback of a chat with a fellow passenger from Hetaunda in 2046. We were in a cramped, noisy, smoke belching and slow bus when my fellow passenger said, “The journey from Hetaunda to Kathmandu will never be the same. There will be a surung between the two cities.”

Two long decades have been reduced from a short lifespan of my fellow passenger and me, and much water has flown in streams between Hetaunda and Kathmandu, yet the dream surung train, like many other ‘dream trains’ in Nepal, remains a pipe dream. Or has it now gone completely by the wayside?