The Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, left the Rail Bhawan in the national capital last year for the Writers Building in West Bengal capital Kolkata. The long march from railway minister to the chief minister of West Bengal also signalled how the Indian Railways, in one short hop, descended into financial chaos and utter neglect.

The face of poribartan (change) in Bengal would now forever be etched in public memory as the face that brought about the ruin of Indian Railways. The firebrand leader literally left the railways in a state of financial meltdown as from Rs 13,431 crore in 2008 its cash reserve fell to a paltry Rs 75 lakh in 2011.

That means, between 2008 and 2010, railways lost a whopping Rs 552 crore every month on an average of Rs 18 crore per day.

A downward spiral that began towards the end of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's tenure as the railway minister accelerated when Banerjee took charge. The decline under her perhaps could be touted as the biggest fall in finances for the railways since Independence.

From lack of cost rationalisation and refusal to increase passenger fares in three consecutive railway budgets Banerjee presented to indulging in mindless political shenanigans by announcing trains for Bengal and setting up of factories, her decisions paved the way for the railway's derailment.

As railway minister Banerjee even changed the colour of railway stations across Bengal to green, which benefited none but cost the exchequer.

A train passenger, Shreeniwas, said, "It is madness. The names of railway stations in the Metro Railways have been changed. Like Tollygunge was changed to Uttam Kumar, a Tollywood star. Like this many names have been changed and it confuses the passengers."

Another train passenger, Kushal Pachisia, said, "It is just the colour of the stations that has changed, the infrastructure remains the same. There is no local on peak hours from 8 pm to 8.30 pm from Howrah. There is a train in the name of Singur Andolan local so it is more like a political vendetta than public welfare."

Misplaced ideologies to not delivering on promises, in her own land Banerjee is now a pale picture of the promised poribartan maker.

In August 2009 then railway minister Banerjee promised a Metro coach factory at Singur to compensate the demise of Tata's Nano car dream project. Till date, a barren piece of land stands testimony to that empty promise. There were three other projects for railway factories that still lie unexecuted.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the 126 km rail link from Katra in Jammu to Qazigund, leading to the Kashmir Valley, finds itself in a mess that might take another 10 years to get sorted. The route lies littered with tunnel collapses, slope failures and bureaucratic roadblocks.

To be fair, Banerjee cannot be held solely responsible for the demise of the Indian Railways. She merely holds the tag of being the latest nail on the rail coffin and the way things are, the 159-year-old ailing giant might not need any more Mamata Banerjee to sink underground for ever.