Indigenous steam loco chugs into Ooty
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The second indigenous steam locomotive for the Nilgiri Mountain Railway(NMR) manufactured at Goldenrock in Tiruchy, arrived at the Mettupalayam railway station at the foothills of the Nilgiris on Monday morning and readied for trial runs.
The railways , which decided to use indigenous steam locomotives for the NMR in 2010 as it began to phase out the four old steam locomotives that often developed technical snags, hopes this second indigenous steam locomotive will work better than the first inducted last March.
The first locomotive, also manufactured at Goldenrock, failed to live up to expectations as it could not haul more than three coaches up the mountains.
Besides railway officials, tourists and locals too are hoping the second locomotive will perform better. Vice presidet of the Coonoor Consumer Forum R.Subramaniam says tourists and locals are keeping their fingers crossed as they are looking forward to more NMR trips and summer specials.
But Mr. K.Natarajan, president of the Heritage Steam Chariot Trust, an organisation of hill train lovers, is critical of the experiments with the indigenous steam locomotives, pointing out that they are oil-fired when the hill track was designed for coal-fired steam locomotives that give NMR travel more heritage value.
“The railways should import Swiss made coal-fired locomotives for the Nilgiris as they will serve it without any hitches whatsoever for the next 100 years,” he suggests.
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