ProUI

As many as 100 scouts, guides, rovers and rangers participated in a mass tree plantation programme organised by the South Western Railway Bharat Scouts and Guides, which concluded here on Wednesday.In the eight-day programme held under the community development greenery project at different places from July 16 to 24, around 500 saplings were planted by the volunteers.State Chief Commissioner of Bharat Scouts and Guides and Chief Workshop Manager of Hubli Workshop Shyamadhar Ram and Chief Personnel Officer of SWR K. Harikrishnan coordinated the programme, under which saplings were planted at Rail Golf Ground, Railway Sports Ground, North Railway Institute, State Training Centre, Rail Nagar and the adjoining places. Participating in the tree plantation programme held at Rail Golf Ground here on Wednesday, Mr. Ram said the programme was undertaken as part of environment conservation and to create awareness among the public. He emphasised the need for planting saplings on regular basis.

If you ask me, I would give two on a ten-point scale to this station considering the unhygienic condition here, said Chirag, who had just arrived by the Jammutavi-Delhi-Jaisalmer Express at the Old Delhi Railway Station. This one-and-a-half-century-old station, a part of the Delhi’s cultural heritage, is fast losing its attraction among travellers due to its deplorable condition.The oldest station in Delhi, it was established in 1864 when trains from Howrah started operating up to Delhi. The station is also known as Delhi Junction. The colonial government constructed the present station building in red stone to give it the effect of the nearby Red Fort. The station was opened to public in 1903.Starting out with two platforms and a handful of passengers, the station now handles lakhs of passengers and nearly 200 trains daily. The station was re-modelled in 1934-35 after the opening of the New Delhi Railway Station in 1926 and the inauguration of New Delhi in 1931. Since 1935, the station building was renovated again only last year.But the scenes at the station, even after renovation, hardly evoke positive feelings. Even before one enters the station, the stench of urine punches ones senses. The boundary wall has become a public lavatory with the authorities turning a blind eye to the situation.

Vehicles can be seen entering the no-entry zone. The main entrance gate stands in a mess with sewer water and waste being collected there. Passengers themselves have added to the woes by littering the area — heightening the fear of spread of diseases. Again, the accumulated stagnant water is a perfect breeding ground for malaria and dengue causing mosquitoes.

According to rules, one has to buy a platform ticket to enter the station and luggage is allowed inside only after a thorough check by security personnel. Here, however, there are many loopholes through which people can enter the station premises unchecked, thus raising a question on the security system.

On the way to platforms, one has to cross the over-bridge which is overcrowded with people sitting and some even sleeping there. The information boards on the over-bridge calls it a offence where one can be fined Rs. 200. But it seems that both the lawmakers and breakers are on equal ground as neither of them bother about this mismanagement.

On the steps descending to the platforms from the over-bridge, people with huge luggage occupy most of the space — leaving little space for others to negotiate the crowd. Same is the case on platforms, too. The situation becomes even more chaotic when a train arrives and passengers are in a hurry to either board it or get down.

The open sewer by the railway tracks in another eyesore; it appears that the sewers have not been cleaned for ages. These, again, serve as public lavatories for ignorant passengers. With this amount of littering and dirt, the number of railway cleaning staff appears insufficient to keep the premises clean.

Even the roof of the platform shade has not been spared. Plastic bottles, chips packets, broken biscuits and beverage cans are found thrown here and there, dirtying it and giving out a foul smell.

The only question that comes in mind after surveying the scenario is, what are the authorities doing?

Its unclean premises and the apathetic attitude of railway authorities is robbing Old Delhi Railway Station of its heritage character

AHMEDABAD: The city attracts hundreds of visitors from different parts of the country every day. Some come in search of jobs or to establish a business while some others are here simply to see the state. Nowadays, however, it is children from other states found on railway platforms unescorted by any adult, who are keeping the railway police busy. In the past three months, the four railway stations in the city have reported one such child found almost each day. These children do not have their home in Gujarat. In 2012-13, the railway police had reported finding 239 such children in the entire year. In the first three months of 2013-14, 85 runaway kids have been found at the city's railway stations, a rise of 41 per cent.

Childline, an NGO working for child rights and which has a pan-India network for lost-and-found children, reported finding 85 children between March and June this year on the platforms of the city's railway stations. These kids, aged from 6 years to 16 years, were from states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi. In three instances, the police found more than one such child on a day.

Purnima Gupta, assistant director of Childline, said that a majority of the children found alone at railway stations are boys. "The ratio between boys and girls is almost 3:1. Girls run away in search of greater security, particularly if they are orphaned, but boys leave their native places either to seek employment or after a fight at home. Most of these kids have just a few rupees to spend on travel and food. Once the money is spent, they get down at a railway station. As Ahmedabad is an important station on the Delhi-Mumbai route and has many trains touching the city, many children end their journey here," she said.

The city has four major railway stations - Kalupur, Maninagar, Vatva and Sabarmati. Childline officials said that most runaway children are found at Kalupur railway station. PP Pirojiya, Government Railway Police (GRP) inspector at Kalupur railway station, said that police alertness for children wandering alone at the station had increased after several children were reported missing within a short period of time last year.

"From February 2012, two teams led by a sub-inspector constantly keep watch for children who may be travelling alone. If found, they are taken to the police station where woman constables and NGO representatives question them about their native place and try to send them back," he said. He added that in 2012-13, more than 45 such children were found while in 2013-14 so far, they have reported 23 such kids.

Why do children run away from home? Gupta said that anything can trigger a knee-jerk response from children. "In a case reported in June, we found a 13-year-old boy at Kalupur railway station. He was from Janakpuri in New Delhi. When questioned, he stated that his father had beaten him up for playing games on his elder brother's mobile phone. He felt hurt and ran away from home. When we contacted his father the following day, he rushed to Ahmedabad and took him back to Delhi," she said.BOX

Girls seek greater security

Officials of Railway Protection Force (RPF) say that they had noticed a rise in the number of girl kids running away from home. Strangely, many of them are in search of greater security.

"This might seem contradictory but most such girls have either lost their parents or are unattached to their families because they had started working early in life. The most shocking case was reported in April this year when a six-year-old girl was found alone at Kalupur railway station. She said she had lost her parents earlier this year and after that the shanty in which she lived in Delhi was also demolished. When some miscreants tried to abduct her, she fled from the locality and boarded a train," said a police official. Later, the girl was shifted to Mahipatram Asharm.

Odd jobs suck in runaway kids

What happens to a child who lands in the city alone and is able to remain undetected? Sources said that while girls usually take up jobs as domestic help, boys frequently end up working at small industrial units in areas such as Odhav, Vatva and Naroda where they are exploited as cheap labour. Childline officials said that they had rescued a 14-year-old boy working at a panipuri handcart in Gomtipur. The boy was from Muzaffarpur where he had been pushed into farm labour at an early age. When he did not like it there, he fled home and ended up in Ahmedabad serving at the handcart.

"It shocked us when he told volunteers that he was suffering from gall bladder stones and wanted to save money for the surgery. Despite severe pain, he had worked for a pittance and without a day off for five months. After he was found, we called his uncle and handed over the boy to him," said a Childline official.

The 61st all-India inter-Railway table tennis championship for men and women will be organised by South Eastern Railway at Garden Reach here from Friday to July 30.As many as 125 players of National and international repute will be seen in action.

Maps, bells and lamps made of “China Glass”, staff badges, clocks, tickets and yellowing piles of paperwork. Huddled together under the soaring ceiling of the ‘Heritage Room’ of Southern Railway’s General Office building in Tiruchi, they seem to be passengers waiting for their journey to start.

And, in a way, perhaps they are. For these artefacts of a bygone era are to form a part of the upcoming railway museum. The collection, curated by an in-house team of officials, includes items such as old manuals, maps, gazettes, and files containing Indo-Ceylon Steamer service records and photographs in addition to out-of-use equipment such as stamping sticks, belt buckles of foremen and signal devices.

The museum is meant to be part of the erstwhile South Indian Railway’s sesquicentennial (150 years) celebrations, though as Mrs Manjula Rangarajan, Divisional Railway Manager, concedes, it’s a little behind schedule.

“The building is now complete, we are working on the electrification. Due to fund constraints, it is not possible for us to throw open the entire museum in one go. So we thought we’d do it in phases. The central hall is ready, and as part of our sesquicentennial celebrations, we thought we would inaugurate this part of the museum. We have a broad idea of where we want to place the exhibits, though it is subject to change in the future,” said Mrs Manjula in an interview.

The site shortlisted for the Railway Heritage Centre, as the museum will be known, is adjacent to the Community Hall near the Tiruchi railway junction, with a total area of about 15 acres. The original station building of the city that was then known as Trichinopoly, built in 1886, will be spruced up to serve as the office and ticket sales counter of the museum.

When we visited, the flooring tiles were being laid in the central exhibition hall, built in a quasi-Raj style. The proposed centre (with an approximate budget of Rs20mn) will be allocating 500 square metres for indoor exhibits. Besides the transport artefacts mentioned above, there is provision for a study room for researching railway history, philately on railway themes, and a digital archive of rare documents related to the South Indian Railway.

“We are planning a family-friendly destination,” said Mrs Manjula of the project. The indoor exhibits will be complemented by an external visitor area containing shady alcoves and eateries, and even a toy train and one or two vintage locomotive engines.

As to what she feels is the most significant part of the heritage collection, Mrs Manjula pointed out to the vintage paperwork that “tell us how we used to run the railways 150 years ago, and how much of it is still in place. It seems we have very good systems in place which are time-tested. Whatever mishaps occur would be mainly due to human error. The signalling systems were rudimentary, technological advancements may have occurred, but the system remains the same.”

The fragile paper documents need a climate-controlled storage system, which, for now, says Mrs Manjula, is still to be finalised.

Reflecting on the future of train travel in India, she said, “I think we are here to stay definitely for a couple of centuries. Our avatars may change, but we will always be there because it will take some time for our people to move away from the railways to the roadways as they have done in the West. More people are indeed taking flights to their destinations (in the domestic sector), but it’s a very large pie, and we have a very large share of that pie.”

Mr S Sayinathan, Traffic Inspector and one of the collection’s curators, says that only after he got formally involved in the project did he realise the indelible link between the railways and India’s history. “After coming to this department to preserve heritage material, I found out that the South Indian Railway is a great organisation,” he said, adding that the development of rail routes throughout the country reflected the India’s growth as well.

“Among our records we have details of how a 542-km stretch on the Tiruchi to Erode route was converted into broad gauge in a mere five hours, on the Pamban cantilever bridge that connects the Palk Strait to mainland India, and which opened to traffic in 1914, and the Unesco heritage status-Nilgiri Mountain railway (inaugurated in 1899 and still in service),” said Mr Sayinathan.

The museum project has also sparked interest among the families of the British staff who worked in South Indian Railway, says Mr Sayinathan, many of who have got in touch and shared their own memorabilia related to the years spent by their forefathers in India.

In 2010, Southern Railway published a glossy volume of rare photographs and historical information titled Marvels of The South Indian Railway, compiled by S Subramhanyan, then-Divisional Railway Manager, as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations.

Considering the potential value of the antiques inside, the Heritage Room is kept locked and out of bounds to the public. The room has the railway security force personnel’s protection throughout the day, and fire alarm systems are in place to avert potential disasters.

An expert from the Saraswathi Mahal in Thanjavur has helped to guide the team in preserving the artefacts for posterity against termites. But dealing with the mice and other rodents has required the services of the rather more simple mousetrap.

Mr Sayinathan checks the authenticity of each piece individually, a process made easier, he says, due to the British habit of stamping every item with the name of the company. “We cannot display all the old materials, because some may still be in use,” he said. “[But] we want to showcase our history to the public, so that they can understand our achievement.”

The 61st all-India inter-Railway table tennis championship for men and women will be organised by South Eastern Railway at Garden Reach here from Friday to July 30.As many as 125 players of National and international repute will be seen in action.

Tiruchi Railway Division replaced the old brick bridge no.50 near Thiruvennainallur railway station with two RCC boxes on Wednesday. Due to line block in connection with the work, two passenger trains were partially cancelled between Vriddhachalam and Villupuram, and four trains were diverted from Vriddhachalam via Cuddalore Port and Villupuram. Over 100 staff were deployed and heavy machinery was put into use for completion of the work. Replacement of this bridge with RCC boxes would enhance flow of water to the adjoining fields, a Southern Railway release said.

The Golden Rock locomotive shed, home for many variants of diesel locomotives here has been adjudged the best among the four loco sheds in the Southern Railway zone in the 2012-13 fiscal.The 41-year-old Tiruchi shed, the largest and the lone shed in the zone to home high horsepower EMD locomotives, bagged the ‘Performance Efficiency Shield’ for the fifth time. The shield was presented to the Tiruchi shed recently, after taking into account various parameters including less number of loco failures homed by the shed, less consumption of lubricants, less cycle time for heavy schedules and for carrying out crew-friendly modifications in the diesel engines.The other diesel loco sheds in the zone are located at Erode, Ernakulam and Tondiarpet in Chennai. The shield was constituted in 2004-05, and the Tiruchi shed has bagged it five times, say railway officials.Among the four sheds, Golden Rock accounts for maximum holding of diesel locomotives with the figure reaching 163 including over 90 ‘Alco’ locos and several ‘EMD’ locos which are capable of reaching a maximum speed of 120 kilometres per hour.The Tiruchi shed has so far received 42 ‘EMD’ locos equipped with micro processors are longer and powerful than the ‘Alco’ diesel locos. The 4,500 horsepower EMD locos have better fuel efficiency than the conventional diesel engines and have higher fuel and lubricant oil capacity. Officials said eight more EMD locos were expected which would increase the tally to 50.

Facilities available

Additional infrastructure facilities have been created in the loco shed to home the EMD locos. Two new bays with elevated platforms have been constructed inside the sprawling shed to exclusively accommodate EMD locos. The bays can accommodate five such locos at a time, say officials. The Tiruchi shed is the only one in Southern Railway to have a Diesel Traction Training Centre (DTTC) within its premises to impart theoretical and field level training for newly recruited Assistant Loco Pilots, maintenance engineers and staff. Refresher courses are organised by the DTTC for Loco Pilots and Assistant Loco Pilots already in service periodically, say officials.

Maps, bells and lamps made of “China Glass”, staff badges, clocks, tickets and yellowing piles of paperwork. Huddled together under the soaring ceiling of the ‘Heritage Room’ of Southern Railway’s General Office building in Tiruchi, they seem to be passengers waiting for their journey to start.

And, in a way, perhaps they are. For these artefacts of a bygone era are to form a part of the upcoming railway museum. The collection, curated by an in-house team of officials, includes items such as old manuals, maps, gazettes, and files containing Indo-Ceylon Steamer service records and photographs in addition to out-of-use equipment such as stamping sticks, belt buckles of foremen and signal devices.

The museum is meant to be part of the erstwhile South Indian Railway’s sesquicentennial (150 years) celebrations, though as Mrs Manjula Rangarajan, Divisional Railway Manager, concedes, it’s a little behind schedule.

“The building is now complete, we are working on the electrification. Due to fund constraints, it is not possible for us to throw open the entire museum in one go. So we thought we’d do it in phases. The central hall is ready, and as part of our sesquicentennial celebrations, we thought we would inaugurate this part of the museum. We have a broad idea of where we want to place the exhibits, though it is subject to change in the future,” said Mrs Manjula in an interview.

The site shortlisted for the Railway Heritage Centre, as the museum will be known, is adjacent to the Community Hall near the Tiruchi railway junction, with a total area of about 15 acres. The original station building of the city that was then known as Trichinopoly, built in 1886, will be spruced up to serve as the office and ticket sales counter of the museum.

When we visited, the flooring tiles were being laid in the central exhibition hall, built in a quasi-Raj style. The proposed centre (with an approximate budget of Rs20mn) will be allocating 500 square metres for indoor exhibits. Besides the transport artefacts mentioned above, there is provision for a study room for researching railway history, philately on railway themes, and a digital archive of rare documents related to the South Indian Railway.

“We are planning a family-friendly destination,” said Mrs Manjula of the project. The indoor exhibits will be complemented by an external visitor area containing shady alcoves and eateries, and even a toy train and one or two vintage locomotive engines.

As to what she feels is the most significant part of the heritage collection, Mrs Manjula pointed out to the vintage paperwork that “tell us how we used to run the railways 150 years ago, and how much of it is still in place. It seems we have very good systems in place which are time-tested. Whatever mishaps occur would be mainly due to human error. The signalling systems were rudimentary, technological advancements may have occurred, but the system remains the same.”

The fragile paper documents need a climate-controlled storage system, which, for now, says Mrs Manjula, is still to be finalised.

Reflecting on the future of train travel in India, she said, “I think we are here to stay definitely for a couple of centuries. Our avatars may change, but we will always be there because it will take some time for our people to move away from the railways to the roadways as they have done in the West. More people are indeed taking flights to their destinations (in the domestic sector), but it’s a very large pie, and we have a very large share of that pie.”

Mr S Sayinathan, Traffic Inspector and one of the collection’s curators, says that only after he got formally involved in the project did he realise the indelible link between the railways and India’s history. “After coming to this department to preserve heritage material, I found out that the South Indian Railway is a great organisation,” he said, adding that the development of rail routes throughout the country reflected the India’s growth as well.

“Among our records we have details of how a 542-km stretch on the Tiruchi to Erode route was converted into broad gauge in a mere five hours, on the Pamban cantilever bridge that connects the Palk Strait to mainland India, and which opened to traffic in 1914, and the Unesco heritage status-Nilgiri Mountain railway (inaugurated in 1899 and still in service),” said Mr Sayinathan.

The museum project has also sparked interest among the families of the British staff who worked in South Indian Railway, says Mr Sayinathan, many of who have got in touch and shared their own memorabilia related to the years spent by their forefathers in India.

In 2010, Southern Railway published a glossy volume of rare photographs and historical information titled Marvels of The South Indian Railway, compiled by S Subramhanyan, then-Divisional Railway Manager, as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations.

Considering the potential value of the antiques inside, the Heritage Room is kept locked and out of bounds to the public. The room has the railway security force personnel’s protection throughout the day, and fire alarm systems are in place to avert potential disasters.

An expert from the Saraswathi Mahal in Thanjavur has helped to guide the team in preserving the artefacts for posterity against termites. But dealing with the mice and other rodents has required the services of the rather more simple mousetrap.

Mr Sayinathan checks the authenticity of each piece individually, a process made easier, he says, due to the British habit of stamping every item with the name of the company. “We cannot display all the old materials, because some may still be in use,” he said. “[But] we want to showcase our history to the public, so that they can understand our achievement.”

सॅंतिआगो डी कॅंपोस्तेला - उत्तर स्पेनमधील सॅंतिआगो डी कॅंपोस्तेला शहरामध्ये झालेला भीषण अपघात हा अतिवेगामुळे झाला असल्याचे वृत्त आज (शुक्रवार) सूत्रांनी दिले. युरोपमधील सर्वांत भीषण रेल्वे अपघातांपैकी एक मानल्या जाणाऱ्या या अपघातामध्ये 80 जण ठार तर शेकडो जण जखमी झाले आहेत. या रेल्वेच्या वाहकास(ड्रायव्हर) पोलिसांनी इस्पितळामधून चौकशीसाठी ताब्यात घेतले आहे.

आठ डबे असलेली ही रेल्वे प्रचंड वेगात असताना एका वळणावर अचानक रुळावरू न घसरून भिंतीला धडकली होती. यानंतर रेल्वेच्या डब्यांमध्ये आगही लागली असल्याचे सूत्रांनी सांगितले होते. उत्तर स्पेनमधील गॅलिशिआ प्रांताची राजधानी असलेल्या सॅंतिआगो डी कोंपोस्तेला शहरामध्ये आता या प्रकरणाची चौकशी चालू झाली असून शहरावर दु:खाची छाया पसरली आहे. येथील स्थानिकांनी मदतकार्यात सहभाग घेताल्याची माहितीही सूत्रांनी दिली आहे.

येशु ख्रिस्ताचे शिष्य असलेल्या सेंट जेम्स यांच्या स्मरणार्थ या पुरातन शहरात साजरा केल्या जाणाऱ्या उत्सवाच्या पार्श्‍वभूमीवर हा दुदैवी अपघात घडला आहे. हा उत्सव युरोपमधील ख्रिश्चन धर्मीयांच्या महत्त्वाच्या उत्सवांपैकी एक मानला जातो  या उत्सवासाठी या शहरात हजारो ख्रिश्‍चनधर्मीय गोळा झाले आहेत. स्पेनचे पंतप्रधान मारिआनो राजोय यांनी या घटनेबद्दल तीव्र शोक व्यक्त केला आहे. माद्रिद येथून फेरोल येथे जाणारी ही रेल्वे गॅलिशिया प्रांतामधील समुद्रकिनाऱ्याजवळ अपघातग्रस्त झाली होती.