Loving the mountain trains
VM Govind Krishnan, a resident of Sector 13, Dwarka, grew up in Mount Pleasant, Coonoor, watching the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) chugging past his home. He distinctly remembers the first journey he took on that train with his grandmother. He was in awe of the way the little train climbed its way through the dense forest and steep hills.
“The sight of the train entering a tunnel and coming out bellowing steam was mesmerising. Even today, the sight moves me beyond words,” says he.
All his professional life (34 years) he worked with Air India, but his heart remained firmly on movement on the ground. He has been in love with trains in general and more specifically with the mountain trains in India.
He has travelled a number of times on all the five operating mountain trains in India and has written extensively on these journeys.
His book, Nilgiri Mountain Railway - From Lifeline to Oblivion, narrates the struggle to save the NMR and throws light on the importance of the railway, as an engineering marvel and from the heritage point of view.
A revised edition of the book, with more photographs, was released this year in February. The first edition of the book came out in 2008.
It took him 40 years to collect the material to write this book.
Says he, “I had started collecting material for the book when the Union Government had proposed to dismantle the scenic railway in 1968 as it was not economically viable. I just wanted this train to continue chugging along.”
He also took hundreds of pictures of the NMR covering all sections of its 46-km route. One of these pictures is displayed in the office of the station master, Coonoor.
“The efforts of train enthusiasts like me met with success when the NMR was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in July 2005. NMR has only one parallel in the world, in Switzerland. Today the revival of the NMR is truly on. The Southern Railways is building new engines that will continue to run the train in the times to come,” he says.
His love for mountain trains does not end with the NMR. He has travelled extensively in other mountain trains of India and has written about them, besides coming out with a picture book on these other mountain trains to Darjeeling, Joginder Nagar (from Pathankot), Shimla and Matheran (Maharashtra).
“If you fall in love with trains, you will never come out of it all your life. A mountain train journey is the most beautiful and romantic journey one can take and we should make sure that our future generations do not miss out on that experience,” says he.
- Hindustan Times, New Delhi
VM Govind Krishnan, a resident of Sector 13, Dwarka, grew up in Mount Pleasant, Coonoor, watching the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) chugging past his home. He distinctly remembers the first journey he took on that train with his grandmother. He was in awe of the way the little train climbed its way through the dense forest and steep hills.
“The sight of the train entering a tunnel and coming out bellowing steam was mesmerising. Even today, the sight moves me beyond words,” says he.
All his professional life (34 years) he worked with Air India, but his heart remained firmly on movement on the ground. He has been in love with trains in general and more specifically with the mountain trains in India.
He has travelled a number of times on all the five operating mountain trains in India and has written extensively on these journeys.
His book, Nilgiri Mountain Railway - From Lifeline to Oblivion, narrates the struggle to save the NMR and throws light on the importance of the railway, as an engineering marvel and from the heritage point of view.
A revised edition of the book, with more photographs, was released this year in February. The first edition of the book came out in 2008.
It took him 40 years to collect the material to write this book.
Says he, “I had started collecting material for the book when the Union Government had proposed to dismantle the scenic railway in 1968 as it was not economically viable. I just wanted this train to continue chugging along.”
He also took hundreds of pictures of the NMR covering all sections of its 46-km route. One of these pictures is displayed in the office of the station master, Coonoor.
“The efforts of train enthusiasts like me met with success when the NMR was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in July 2005. NMR has only one parallel in the world, in Switzerland. Today the revival of the NMR is truly on. The Southern Railways is building new engines that will continue to run the train in the times to come,” he says.
His love for mountain trains does not end with the NMR. He has travelled extensively in other mountain trains of India and has written about them, besides coming out with a picture book on these other mountain trains to Darjeeling, Joginder Nagar (from Pathankot), Shimla and Matheran (Maharashtra).
“If you fall in love with trains, you will never come out of it all your life. A mountain train journey is the most beautiful and romantic journey one can take and we should make sure that our future generations do not miss out on that experience,” says he.
- Hindustan Times, New Delhi
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