Stories in Everything

I think I have managed to make myself sick with a pretentious title. Often when you start talking to locals they will give you some explanation of what you would otherwise not consider. That the buildings in an area are illegal, or were built because of some funds, or on top of some site. Other times its what the locals ignore, like this silent concrete structure behind Madgaon station (also known as and spelled Margao, Margaon, Mangao, Mangoa... they should probably work on standardising that).

It's largely ignored, but as I was wandering around I soon found a couple of explanatory plaques. I was half expecting, from its silent decay, that it was some ill fated corruption riddled public transport system. But I was wrong, this is in fact a test track for a 'sky-bus' technology. But then again the idleness of the test track worried me. The use of the buildings by the health authority suggests ill fated isn't far off, but I don't find out all the details without the help of google. The plaques mention a World Fair, which as the term isn't familiar already suggests a dated vision of the future. This was supposed to be the Indian inspired mass-transit system of the future... different in that it was suspended.

I have a feeling the alignment of these blocks isn't critical, still, not entirely reassuring for a system which was completed 8 years ago.

It turns out that only 1.6kms of a planned 10.5km test track was completed. On the first test one employee was killed and three others injured... not much seems to have happened in the last 8 years. Still the Konkan railway corporation website still has big plans, but I don't see much coming of it. At least not before the Bangalore Metro is completed (its slipped a few years, as you can guess).