Title - Loco makes heritage run

Chennai: Southern Railway (SR) on Thursday held a special heritage run of the 158-year-old steam locomotive EIR-21 from Egmore to Guindy in view of Independence Day.

Select SR officials travelled in the 60-seater coach attached to the country’s oldest steam locomotive, which not only failed to break records this time but also got delayed by 23 minutes owing to technical snag on Thursday.

The locomotive, which left Egmore at 11am had to make a 20-minute unscheduled halt at Chetpet owing to technical snag. It left Chetpet after minor repair and a push from a pilot engine (diesel).

The train got delayed further in Kodambakkam, where it waited for 30 minutes, against the planned 15 minutes after several locals stood on the tracks to catch a glimpse of the heritage locomotive on the run, thereby blocking the way. The locomotive finally reached Guindy at 12.50pm.

EIR-21 is even older than the Fairy Queen, another 135-year-old locomotive. Last year, the same locomotive surprised Perambur loco engineers by covering Egmore-Guindy distance in a record 27 minutes at a speed of 40kmph, against the 35 minutes achieved in 2011.

EIR-21, which rolled out from the factory of Kitson Thompson and Hewitson Leeds, was shipped from United Kingdom in 1855 and it served in erstwhile East Indian Railway till 1909 before being reduced to an antique on display at Howrah.