The forgotten Frontier Mail

A railway train used to run between the then Bombay and Peshawar between 1928 and 1947 which was billed as Frontier Mail.After partition of the sub-continent its area of operation naturally restricted between Bombay and Amritsar.In 1996 it was renamed as Golden Temple Train by the Indian government .On this side of the Wagah border we discontinued it soon after partition and instead started a train between Peshawar and Karachi named as Khyber Mail.
Frontier Mail was famous for a variety of reasons. It used to run bang on time. Such was its punctuality that It used to be said that while Rolex watch can err in showing correct time ,the Frontier Mail could not ,insofar, as observance of time schedule was concernced.An anecdote says that once when it reached Bombay fifteen minutes late than its scheduled arrival time the railway authorities took a strong note of it and on inquiry it was found that its Driver wasn’t at fault for it.Actually it so happened that the then Assistant Commissioner Nowshera Iskandar Mirza who was to become President of Pakistan in 1950s fancied eating fish.One day he felt a strong urge to partake of it.Somebody had told him that he should taste fish cooked in the dining car of Frontier mail which was matchless .So what he did was that he reached Nowshera’s railway station to buy it from the dining car of Frontier Mail which was to halt at Nowshera for a short thus causing its over stay there for a couple of minutes as a result of it the train got late.The government later on reprimanded him for that act of irresponsibility.
All notable personalities whether they belonged to politics,filmdom, Armed forces or civil service preferred to travel in it.The food served in its dining car was excellent. Surprisingly, air-conditioned coaches were attached with it as back as in 1934 and iced bottles of drinking water and beverages were served also in that train.
After partition while the Indians carried out a lot of improvement in their railway network, we on the contrary, neglected it and failed to build on excellent railway system we had inherited from the Britishers.