In his last despatch from Pakistan the NYT's Declan Walsh travelled on the crumbling railway system and IMO provides a vivid, human portrait of a country I suspect many SWC readers would prefer to ignore:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/wo...pagewanted=all

There's also a photo series - some tell more than the author writes

Friends have travelled on Indian railways and they bear no comparison to Pakistan - they gave up trying to book long journeys, the booking office didn't even have a computer.