when in doubt, go to a library !!!!!

Or should we now say, "go to google"

well my story here is about a train trip that i took in the month of july. I had boarded a train for a longish trip after nearly 20 years and was eager to see what still remained from the times when trains were the prefered mode of transport.

So, I did what I always did back in the days on entering the platform...look for a A H Wheeler book stall to pick up a treasury of books to read on the trip. Well....there was none to be found. So I did what one always does nowadays....I googled and tried to find what happened to these book stalls which were such a favorite of our generation.

Emile Moreau an avid reader with trunks full of books chanced upon the idea of opening a chain of book stalls on Indian railway platforms. The first one was opened in 1877 at the Prayagraj/ Allahabad railway station . The bookstore, A H Wheeler borrowed its name from the then famous bookstore in London and its owner Arthur Henry Wheeler, who was also a friend of Emile Moreau and helped him financially.

Soon the book stalls became very popular and spread widely, specially on the stations of north India. People loved to buy newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and novels from these stalls. I remember we would buy a book from one station, finish reading it and exchange it for a new one at some other station, if we were on a long journey.

Emile Moreau soon set up a printing press and in 1888, the company started publishing a series of booklets called the Indian Railway Library Series. Rudyard Kipling also contributed to these series on the request of Moreau.

Some of the popular publications of these series include Under the Deodars, The story of Gadsbys, Wee Willie Winkie, The Phantom Rickshaw etc. Each book was sold at the railway stations for one rupee.

In the year 1961 the Indian Railways restricted the sole selling rights of A.H.Wheeler & Co to a few stations and soon after, the allotment of stalls was opened to categories like unemployed youth and philanthropic organisations.

In the latest from Railway Board, it has been decided to convert all book stalls to multipurpose stalls.

Hence, do not go looking for the earlier kind of book stalls that were a treasure house of fiction and non fiction books, novels, magazines newsletters and all. Remember to carry your own hard copies or at least a Kindle. Incidentally the 4,500 kms that we covered by train this time had a good network connectivity.

Look out for more updates by me on my trip !!!!