Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on 08 July confirmed the launch of India’s first ‘steam engine’ theme-based train soon. A heritage special train, which will ply on tourist routes, looks like an old steam engine-driven train. The Railway Minister also inspected the ‘Heritage Special’ train at Chennai Central Railway Station.
With the look of a traditional steam locomotive train, it will be run on electricity and will soon be introduced on heritage routes in the coming months. The special train will have three air-conditioned executive chair cars and one air-conditioned pantry and one restaurant coach.
Train made using ‘Steam Engine’ as the theme
Elaborating on the concept, Vaishnav said that the Railways plans to introduce a new concept – ‘Heritage Special’, which will be built using ‘Steam Engine’ as the theme. He told reporters, “As we all know, the steam engine is very emotionally attached to us and even though it is not running today, we thought we could create a new concept that looks like a steam engine.” but actually runs on electricity.”
‘Heritage Special’
The minister said that this concept of heritage train using steam as the theme was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he believes in the concept ‘virasat bhi, vikas bhi’ which means ‘heritage’ and ‘Development’ should go together. He said, “This new concept has been created as a heritage special, I thank the very fine technical officers, staff and Golden Rock Railway Workshops, Tiruchirappalli, Perambur and Avadi who have contributed in making this concept.”
He further said that the special train will be first tested on long heritage routes and later it will be opened for tourists in two-three months. “We will try it first and then build it more. In the next two or three months, it should be in public use. Basically, our testing on the ground is complete, we have received the safety certificate for it. We Will run it on long routes and then take it into regular commercial operation,” he said.
‘It’s a modification of the existing thing’
When asked how much funding went into developing the concept, he said, “It’s a modification of existing things, the boiler is built new. It’s not very expensive.” On operationalization of the North-South corridor for freight trains, Vaishnav informed that the ministry is working with a ‘comprehensive programme’ such as what are the major sources of cargo, what are the major destinations for the cargo.
“We are following the same approach. What the Railways is thinking is that we are now looking at strengthening the existing (freight) corridors,” he said.