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City may get a rail museum
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The old railway station of Kochi, now lying uncared for, may well turn into a rail museum if rail historian Devan Varma’s proposal is okayed by the Rail Ministry, reports K. Pradeep
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Resurrection? The building of the old Ernakulam Railway Station in ruins
The last passenger train chugged out of the old Ernakulam Railway Station sometime in the early sixties. Kochi was growing. The development of the Cochin Port made it imperative to extend the railway track to the harbour. Soon the present Railway Sta
tion located south of Ernakulam came up and the old one lost its significance.
For long it functioned as a Goods Station, and then was converted into a storage house for cement. Gradually, this virtual heritage site had gone to seed, overgrown with weeds, nettles, dense overhanging foliage, tall, green and dark.
Now there seems to be hope for Kochi’s heritage railway station. A proposal to convert this into a rail museum has been placed before the top officials of the Railway Board and the National Rail Museum, New Delhi. And Devan Varma, Railway Historian and member of the Indian Steam Railway Society, who made a presentation before an august audience, is quite positive of the result.
“Actually my presentation at the National Conference of Indian Steam Railway Society in New Delhi was on the old Cochin State Forest Tramway. At the end of it I added a wish list. That included publishing a coffee-table book, a documentary film and a postal stamp on this historic tramway. I also added a short slide show on the old railway station suggesting that it be converted into a minor rail museum, like we have in some of the other cities in the country. The response was overwhelming,” informs Mr. Varma.
In fact, Varma’s first two proposals were readily accepted. “Mayank Tewari, Director, National Rail Museum, immediately gave the green signal for the coffee-table book and the documentary. Sanctioning of funds for such projects, he said, was within his powers. But he and the other Board members felt that for the rail museum the permission should come from the Ministry. Once this is cleared they have promised all assistance.”
This means that the project now needs a political push from the Members of Parliament from the State, or more specifically from Ernakulam district, or perhaps from the government itself.
K. Chandran Pillai, MP, was quite delighted about the project, but he expressed his apprehensions too. “It is certainly a wonderful project for a fast developing city like Kochi. I must first make a study of the whole project before putting this through to the Railway Ministry.” Then with a chuckle he added, “And, you know how they have always looked at our proposals. But in this case we need only to get the nod from Laluji (Lalu Prasad Yadav). I think we must go ahead.”
According to Varma this project will not be a huge drain on the Ministry’s exchequer. The land and property is with the Railways. Thankfully, some of the heritage buildings are still standing. The exclusive waiting room aptly called the ‘Kottaram’ built exclusively for the members of the Cochin Royal Family, part of the platform, the water tank and other archival structures are still there. There is a board, now overgrown with creepers, that states that anyone who wanted to see the train had to pay an entrance charge of 50 paise. There was a coffee shop that was run by Spencer’s and this can be revived.
“At the National Rail Museum I saw an Orenstein & Koppel steam engine, the 150 HP, 2604/07 kind that was exactly the type of engine that plied the Parambikulam-Chalakudy route years back on the Cochin State Forest Tramway. I even told the Director that if the Kochi museum becomes a reality this engine could be brought here. There are other exhibits, like the working model of the rope and chain haulage now at the Thrissur museum and the huge crane that loaded goods into the train at Chalakudy, which can be brought here. We can fill it with exclusive photographs and interesting anecdotes of those romantic days. There are so many things we can do here like introducing special packages for school children and even reserving the platform for children to host their birthday parties,” says Varma.
Kochi’s USP is its unique fusion of tradition and modernity. The proposed rail museum will certainly fit into the character of the city. It will bring about an emotional connectivity among peoples, between heritages, various cultures. “This is a wonderful proposal. Bringing alive a romantic past and antiquity should surely be welcomed. The DTPC will only be happy to be part of the project and will back it wholeheartedly,” says A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish, District Collector and Chairman, DTPC.
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