Green light

One of those few photographs I have taken which has people in them. 

This is a place that deserves a post of its own; the Chennai Rail Museum at Perambur, where kids can get to ride a toy train. 

You've got the green light. Go!

 

Crowdless corner

Continuing on yesterday's theme, here is a picture of another public space that one would expect to be packed. 

Surprisingly, the foyer of the Chennai Central's has moments of emptiness!

Shipping line

It is highly unlikely that anyone reading this would get to travel in a train on this line. No, that's not meant as a challenge, for this is not a line meant to carry passenger traffic. It runs inside the Port of Chennai and is meant to carry freight. And that's rather unique, because there are very few railway lines that are operated outside the control of the Indian Railways, and this is one of them. 

Besides railway lines, but the Port of Chennai also has a Terminal Shunting Yard within it. The lines run for 41km within the harbour; there are designated sidings for specific kinds of cargo - apart from those for general dry bulk cargo and a dedicated sidings for container traffic. The tracks run for a few kilometres outside the harbour area as well - without that connect, how could goods ever get out of the port!

Not just a token

Chennai has been a relative late-comer to the Metro rail scene, being the sixth or the seventh (depending on whether you consider Gurgaon as being distinct from the Delhi Metro - it actually is) in the country to operate such a service. Since its inauguration on June 29 this year, the Chennai Metro has seen a lot of traffic; the CMRL authorities are still trying to figure out if it is actually commuter traffic, or folks who are taking a joy ride on the Metro.

We were among the latter a couple of weeks ago. I've been used to picking up the small, 1"X 0.3" dull yellow pasteboard tickets on the city's suburban trains that I was looking for something like those when the clerk at the counter, channeling his inner croupier, pushed these tokens towards me. I had heard about these tokens - once anyone enters a station using a token, the system checks if the same token has come out within a given timeframe. If it does not, something like a missing person alert goes out and the passenger is traced. Helps cut down loitering at the stations. 

But then, I kept these tokens away so carefully that I couldn't find them when we got off the train. Searched all my pockets. Nada. So we head over to the help-desk. Too many people there, we are asked to wait. And then, like always, my wife told me where to look for them. Sure enough, there they were. Well, we did not get to find out what happens to a commuter who loses his tokens. And we are glad we didn't!

Elevated rail

At about half-past-eight on a weekday, you would expect the traffic on Mount Road at Guindy to be much denser. Maybe it was just an off-day, for it seems to be quite light. 

The tracks of the Chennai Metro are seen, at a height from the road. Once it is in operation, it is expected to further reduce the traffic congestion. On the evidence of this picture, there doesn't seem to be much need for it!

Burma side

The Dare House, at the corner of Rajaji Salai and NSC Bose Road, is the headquarters of the Murugappa Group. The Group's origins can in some way be traced back to a time when Chettiars were a significant presence in the traditional banking industry in Moulmein in South Burma. Legislation in Burma in the late 1940s made it difficult for them to continue there and they came back to India, setting up a business empire that is roughly $4 billion today. 

From the top of Dare House, one can look down and across Rajaji Salai at another set of businessmen who also had to flee Burma during the 1960s. In 1964, the Ne Win government nationalised shops, which set small and marginal traders fleeing from the country. It is estimated that, during the '60s, almost 250,000 people of Indian origin fled Burma - and with over 90% of them being of Tamizh origin, Madras was one of the magnets for them to return to. 

The official figure - one that is from 2001, though - is that 144,445 refugees have been rehabilitated in Tamil Nadu. Part of the rehabilitation programme was the Tamil Nadu government setting up shops for them just outside the Madras Beach railway station. That was in 1969 and over the years, the stretch has grown to roughly 200 shops, selling everything from A to Z. Known as Burma Bazaar, it has long enjoyed a reputation of being the go-to place for anything that is not allowed in through normal import channels. That reputation may be a bit dented now, but Burma Bazaar continues to be the magnet for things that regular stores would not be able to stock!

Chimneys

If ever you take a train out of Chennai Central, you cannot miss this trio. Well, yes, at night time you will not be able to see the colours so clearly, but the chimneys are lit up, so they are not easy to miss. A generation or so ago, these chimneys weren't around, but you would know that you are crossing the Basin Bridge power station because of their predecessors - massive concrete structures, which looked pretty much like chimneys, as you can see from this picture.

The Basin Bridge power station was modernised by GMR and was commissioned in 1998. Since then, it has been supplying about 200MW of electricity to the state electricity board. GMR claims that it does not use any water from the city, but treats the city's sewage to generate the water it needs for its operations. They boast a 75% recovery rate from the sewage - I am not sure if that is a high benchmark, or just regular operations. 

So, the next time you go out of the Chennai Central station, don't forget to say goodbye to these chimneys!

Metro matters

It has taken a little over four years and the Chennai Metro appears to be on track for taking on the first set of passengers early next year. Put together, the two corridors will have a tad over 45km of track, of which 24km would run underground. This is a picture of a section of Corridor 2 (Central to St Thomas Mount), between Arumbakkam and Vadapazhani. A map of the corridors can be seen here. 

How may stations does the Chennai Metro have? That was a question at the Madras Quiz, to which many teams knew the answer (no, we did not). Each of the corridors has 17 stations. Another question was to identify which is the only station common to both corridors - that's the Alandur station, near the airport (which we knew). But the correct answer to the first question was given as 32 - which doesn't add up.

One explanation is that the number would depend on how you count the stations. Going by their names, there are only 32. Apart from Alandur, the other common name is Central Metro; on the map, however, the corridors show distinct stations, so if we were to go by that count, there would really be 33 stations. 

And then, there would be some who might insist on adding up the stations and claiming that there are actually 34!

Flag waver

He seems to be an anachronism in these high-tech days. It is only when one gets away from the cities that the standing of a railway station master can be truly gauged. In the small stations along the country's rail network, the master is truly one. In the larger ones - towns, cities - the 'Station Master' designation is being replaced by something called 'Station Manager'. Maybe replaced is not the right word, for there are some stations where both officials are working. 

According to the All India Station Masters' Association, the country has 35,770 railwaymen who we notice as our train passes the station; they stand there, waving a red or a green flag. Nice job, being friendly to the trains that pass along. Of course there is more to it, but especially in a rustic station, where time runs slow, such flag waving is possibly the high point of the station master's day.

But an MRTS station like Velachery - shown in the picture - is somewhere in between. The frequency of trains is not so high that the station master keeps popping in and out, and not so low that he can sack out between trains. For a moment, I thought this particular station master was confused about which flag to wave!

Track and field

Not often that you get a chance to see the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium from the train. On a weekday, the carriage would be so crowded that one would not even be able to breathe deeply for fear of pushing a couple of people out on to the tracks. 

On a Sunday morning, it was nice to get this view as the train pulled out of Chennai Central. Would have been nice to get a view of those tracks inside the stadium, as well!

On target?

It is probably Chennai's most global project. No, I'm not talking about the building in the background, but the work that's going on in front of it. The Chennai Metro currently has workers from six nations working on the project at various locations around the city. Apart from Indians (of course!), there are Nepalese, Chinese, Russians, South Africans and Germans who are involved in various aspects of building the metro lines. If we also consider the rolling stock being manufactured at Alstom's factory at Sao Paulo, Brazil, rails from France, fastenings from the UK (and China), communication systems from Singapore and signalling systems from Japan, that's quite a lot of languages to be talking in.

Then there are the complexities of Indian languages. Tamizh, Hindi, Oriya, Telugu... those are ones I've heard most often. Despite all the potential for communication breakdowns, the project seems to be moving along smoothly and appears to be on track for a December 2013 launch.

For all that, the technicians don't appear to be stressed about the schedules at all. Seeing them nice and relaxed, as they go about messing with the theodolites and stuff, you can't help wonder if they could actually speed it up a bit and give us the metro rail earlier!

Station mural

Considering its positioning, so near Mount Road, the Chintadripet MRTS station should have been buzzing with people. The planners also had such visions in mind when the station was opened in 1995; it has quite a bit of parking space, as well as many options for commercial space within the station building. But, as it has happened with most of the MRTS' stations, the "build it and they will come" approach did not pan out exactly the way it was forecast. The network itself has suffered from poor interconnectivity and has not been well patronised. 

With the Chennai Metro also coming up, it is hoped that the MRTS will also get a boost; Chintadripet is one of the MRTS stations that is quite close to the Metro and it could become an interchange point. If that were to happen, a lot more people can look up at this mural on the station facade with a smile!

Palace on the road

The railwaymen never tire of putting their railway-ness in your face every chance they get. With a long history and quite a bit of rolling stock having stopped rolling, they have a lot of spare parts and scrap to fabricate such decorations as these. 


This is the entrance to the ICF Guest House at Pilkington Road, Perambur. From the outside, it looks quite swank; guess it must be for the top locos of the Indian Railways!

Prancing horse

At first glance it seemed to be a racecar gone off the tracks. The prancing horse logo is so much a part of the famous Ferrari brand that it takes a couple of moments before we can adjust to its presence on the polar opposite of a racecar - and one that has obviously not moved an inch for quite a few years, now. But the 'rampant horse' has been a symbol of many things - products, places, maybe even people - through the ages. It was obvious this one had no connection with fast cars.

In fact, this logo appears to pre-date Enzo Ferrari's firm by a few decades. It was in 1865 that Thomas Aveling and Richard Porter built the first steam engine of their partnership. Having set up the business in Rochester, Kent, Aveling & Porter borrowed both the logo and the motto of that county for themselves. The word "Invicta" (undefeated) was placed under Kent's 'White Horse rampant' to make up the logo of Aveling & Porter, one that had remained more or less unchanged through a few changes in the company's ownership.

Although this one cannot claim any great antiquity, it is still somehow fitting that it lies abandoned in the middle of railway territory. It is believed that Aveling & Porter supplied quite a few of the steam rollers required to clear terrain before rails could be laid. And this machine, standing on Constable Road, Perambur seems to be in sympathy with the buildings of Aveling & Porter, the last of which was brought down earlier this year!

Crossroad

Perambur has always been the nerve-centre of the railways in Chennai. True, the Chennai Central and the Chennai Egmore stations are always more in the public eye, but that's only because they were the faces of the railway. Perambur was - and is - where the railway heart throbs.


Large tracts of land in Perambur belongs to the Railways; public access is permitted only to pass through. When you do pass through, you realize that you're in the middle of a huge 'company colony', with differentiated residences for employees at different levels, clubs, playgrounds, and even a trade union office. Trees on both sides of the roads give the whole space a very sylvan feel.


And the roads - not very broad, but never appearing narrow, they're all neatly black-topped for the most part, fitting well with the 'colony' image. Adding to that of-time-gone-by feel are the street names. Almost all of them are English names, honouring railwaymen of long, long ago!

End of the line

For now, this is the southern end of Chennai's MRTS line. But it will hold on to that position for only a couple of more years, because work on extending the line to St Thomas Mount - where it will connect with the Beach-Tambaram suburban line - has already begun. And then, Velachery will become just another stop on the MRTS. That's kind of sad, because this station changed the face of Velachery and of the MRTS itself, in many ways.

Though the second phase of the MRTS was to cover the entire stretch from Tirumylai to Velachery, there was a significant pause at Tiruvanmiyur. The original plan called for the tracks, which run above the road level, to come down after Tiruvanmiyur and run along the ground to Velachery. However, with tests showing the soil around Taramani to be softer than required, the tracks remained raised up right through to Velachery. Those tests and the change of plans led to a delay in the last bit of the line being completed; and for some reason, people were reluctant to use even the functioning part, the Tirumylai - Tiruvanmiyur section.

In the first year after this station was inaugurated, the usage of the MRTS almost trebled; though it is slower now, usage is still growing. Surely it will explode once again when the connection to St Thomas Mount is made!

Missing the 'I'

A few years ago, some additions were made to the Chennai Egmore station, on its western side. They were the latest in a series of additions that were made to the buildings of this station, which traces its origins to more than a century ago. In those days - the station was opened in 1908 - it is said to have cost Rs.17 lakh to build and between Henry Irwin (the designer) and Samynada Pillai (the builder), they managed to work in some Dravidian elements into the structure. The original lobby and porch on the eastern side thus set a pattern which was not broken in the later additions to the buildings, in the 1930s as well as in the 1980s.



The newest addition, on the western side also remains largely true to the original style of construction. But if you've ever glanced up at the bas-relief crest on the eastern side, you'll notice a difference here. On the western side, the builders have strayed just a little bit. While they have retained the elephant motif of the eastern face - that was probably part of the logo of the South Indian Railway - but they have been unfaithful to the letters. The 'I', which is present in the older version (though painted over to merge with the background, now) is missing here.



Maybe that's the way it should be - future generations can argue about how the S.I.R. became the S.R. - and that's a story for another post!

Break journey

Looking at the time this picture was taken - 0833 hrs - I assumed that the Chennai Central was experiencing that slight lull when the first rush of the morning's work has given way to thought about that cup of coffee.

However, there is no real break worth its name for more than 15 minutes at Chennai Central; trains are either coming or going at all hours of the day, except between 2345 when the last trains for the day leave (the Ahilyanagari Express, Raptisagar Express and the Korba-Thiruvananthapuram Express) and 0215 when the first trains (Chandigarh-Chennai Express and Dehra Dun - Chennai Express) arrive.

The lack of crowds at this time was probably a freak phenomenon; like one of those ghost traffic-jams, a ghost break-in-the-journey!

Empty station

On the Beach - Tambaram suburban train line, there are some 'important' stations and others which are not so. Chetpet is not one of the important ones - to me it had always seemed to be a station which was placed more to break the monotony of the stretch between Nungambakkam and Egmore than to serve any commercial or even public interest.

Even so, Chetpet station is normally not so empty; it is just that, close to noontime on Sunday, there are just a few people on the platform - and fewer in the train!

Solid gate

You'd expect a gate to the Southern Railway's headquarters building to have some indication about the building. There is nothing in all the iron-work on this gate which directly refers to the Southern Railways.

But look closely and on the top right corner of the gate, you can make out the intertwined letters "MSMR". That's what the building was originally meant for, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railways. Though the MSMR is no more (it was merged with the South Indian Railways and Mysore State Railways to form the Southern Railways in 1951), the letters still live on here. Now, isn't this a gate that has stood the test of time!