Title - Authorities urged to operate NMR as regular service

It is seven years since the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO approved the World Heritage Site status for the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR). The NMR was declared as a World Heritage Site on July 15, 2005 during the 29th session of the World Heritage Committee held at Durban in South Africa.Railway enthusiasts feel that the authorities have not done much to popularise and improve the NMR even after it was conferred the status. Like the annual mandatory government exhibitions, they operate a special mountain train every summer, but forget the NMR till the next summer. What is even sadder is that the special train is just operated between Mettupalayam and Coonoor, leaving the tourists, so to say, half full. They will content only if the train is run up to OotySays 76-year-old veteran lawyer K V Krishnan, who authored a book about important happenings in the Nilgiris, “The NMR plied regularly between Ooty and Mettupalayam, with two or more first class bogies, with almost all white passengers, four other bogies, and a parcel service. White turbaned waiters with tea pots, red turbaned porters carrying luggage, and Dodge taxis arriving one after the other, was a sight to behold. The NMR also carried goods. Cordite from the Aruvankadu factory was sent by the NMR in specially made wagons.”“At a time when we are all talking about a third road (the two existing roads being Ooty-Coonoor-Burilar-Mettupalayam and Ooty-Kotagiri-Mettupalayam) to the Nilgiris, we should remember that the NMR is the real third road’. It’s high time the railway was given more importance and used as an alternative route to the Nilgiris,” Krishnan said.

K Natarajan, who was the first to operate NMR on contract basis from 1997 to 2000, organised an interaction programme here on Saturday to create awareness about the issue.

It focused on running the NMR as a local train. Accepting K V Krishnan’s suggestion of NMR as an alternative road, Natarajan appealed to the authorities to operate it as a regular local passenger-cum-tourist train so that the service is sustainable. He wanted the number of coaches to be increased from three to four, as in the past.

He appealed to the authorities to go beyond thinking about operating the NMR as a tourist toy train during summer. Pointing out that Kovai-Mettupalayam passenger train proved to be a “mega success” with the support of local commuters, he asked, “Can we not do the same in the case of NMR?” He also said the authorities could introduce several viable schemes such as Foot Plate Train for steam engine enthusiasts and weekend special Heritage Express for school and college students to generate more revenue through the NMR.