Venkat has this lovely description of local trains vs. long distance trains in Bombay:
The first impression is from my first view of Bombay’s Victoria Terminus (VT) railway station in 1993, where I arrived to start college. The image that stuck in my mind was that of the rust-and-ochre local commuter trains juxtaposed against the long-distance express trains a few platforms away. In the bustle of VT, the local trains seem to exude confidence, competence, agility and intelligence, rapidly disgorging hundreds of passengers in minutes and swallowing hundreds more, before dashing back up the few dozens of miles to the terminii at the other end of Bombay’s north-south extent. Next to these trains, the express trains seem weary, lumbering and stupid. Clueless village mice to the local trains’ town mice. If you ride the express trains out of Bombay though, you will notice a subtle change in your impressions as you slowly chug out of the city. As you leave the outermost local stations behind, and the powerful engines start to open up in preparation for crossing the Western Ghat mountains into the hinterland, a sense of awesome power and peace envelops you. It is now the pert, darting little local trains, left behind at the last few dimly-lit stations, that seem somehow forlorn, tragic and doomed to a sad life within the confines of Bombay, forever denied the exhilaration of the open tracks that snake for thousands of miles across India.
The full article is about something else entirely, which is also interesting…