The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Bidding adieu to metre gauge trains

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 01, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Bidding adieu to metre gauge trains

K. Manikandan

Commuters and railway employees turn nostalgic at Tambaram station

FINAL RUN: The last metre gauge service on the Tambaram-Villupuram sector leaving Tambaram on Thursday. — Photo : A.Muralitharan

TAMBARAM : K. Krishnakumar was just 15-month-old when he travelled in the inaugural superfast Vaigai Express between Chennai and Madurai on August 15, 1977.

On Thursday, he was at platform No. 4 at the Tambaram railway station to bid adieu to the last of metre gauge trains hauled by the same diesel locomotives, which powered the superfast train during those days.

The three remaining metre gauge passenger trains originating from Tambaram and running up to Tiruvannamalai and Villupuram made their final journey before commencement of gauge conversion works on this stretch.

Krishnakumar, a member of the Indian Railways Fan Club Association, was joined by other members on the occasion.

Along with him, `Poochi' Venkat, photographer, and G. Swaminathan, working in a software company, travelled in the last train up to Chengalpattu.

"We cannot define our relationship with the metre gauge trains. First hauled by steam locos and later by diesel engines, they have served Tamil Nadu for more than 100 years on routes laid by the British," Mr. Venkat remarked.

Ardent fans and admirers of Indian Railways, its trains and locomotives, they said the efficiency and power of the metre gauge diesel engines were simply unmatched.

"We used to wait on the Guindy bridge to watch the metre gauge Vaigai Express in those days running at a speed of 100 km per hour," Mr. Swaminathan recalled.

Commuters and railway employees turned nostalgic as loco pilot A. Amalraj and his deputy P. Saravanan guided the last metre gauge train, Villupuram Passenger, out of the Tambaram station.

After gauge conversion between Tambaram and Egmore in the late 1990s, Sethu, Kamban and Cholan Expresses and Thanjavur and Kumbakonam Fast Passenger trains were operated from Tambaram to transport commuters to coastal, central and southern districts of Tamil Nadu in addition to a few passenger trains.

In December 2006, five of these services were stopped because of gauge conversion beyond Villupuram and the remaining three services to Villupuram and Tiruvannamalai were stopped on Thursday.

Special services on the broad gauge section between Tambaram and Villupuram would be operated from Friday, officials of the Southern Railway said.

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