RailEnquiry

KAPURTHALA: Science City Kapurthala opened a new gallery on railways on Friday. The much awaited gallery depicts an interesting combination of information on Indian Railways coupled with dioramas on some of the world renowned railway lines. The gallery was inaugurated by Director General, Science City Dr R S Khandpur. The Rail Gallery has been set up with the financial and technical assistance of Railway Board at a cost of Rs 90 lakhs, said an RCF spokesperson.Dr Khandpur said that Indian Railways was one of the world's largest railway network comprising 115,000 km and 7,000 stations and there were several aspects regarding its operations which could be of interest for the people especially the students. He said that dioramas have been set up on those rail lines which are technological challenging and visually inspiring. They include Kalka-Shimla railway track, Jammu- Srinagar railway link, the bullet train of Japan, Delhi Metro and principle of levitation used in high speed trains.A model of magnetic levitation train has also been set up. This is a wheel-less train that only requires a magnetic rail track on the ground. This technique is increasingly being used in high speed trains.The famous bullet train of Japan is shown with an interesting landscape in the background. The maximum operating speed of the train is 320 Km per hour. There are separate dioramas showing the functioning of the Station Master, the Guard, the ticket collector, and the pointsman.

The most interesting part of the railway gallery is the diesel engine simulator.This type of simulator is used to train engine drivers. Sitting on the driver's seat in the simulator, the visitor can feel and enjoy the movement of the train on the track. Outside the driver cabin, there is a duplicate control kiosk on which one can learn the operations of the various controls. It displays the various rules and choices to the visitors and gives information on incentives and penalties of the scoring system to self assess your performance.