Coonoor: Mr Vashishta Johri, general manager, Southern Railway ruled out the possibility of operating summer specials in the Nilgiris Mountain Railway (NMR) this summer.
Addressing the media at Coonoor railway station on Friday, Mr Johri said that as of now, the situation was not conducive to operate summer specials in the NMR sector as it required more coaches and other related arrangements.
Stating that the NMR now has seven steam locomotives, including the recently inducted four indigenous steam locomotives which haul the hill train between the racked Coonoor and Mettupalayam sector of the NMR, Mr Johri said that in this challenging sector, the railways was now operating the NMR train with four coaches though in the past it was run with only three.
“Now the NMR train needs more coaches and we are working on it. We have done preliminary studies to identify landslide prone areas along the NMR to take necessary steps by constructing retaining walls and other works to check landslips along the NMR track during rains. We are looking for avenues of road connectivity to reach the track at the time of emergencies and also to transport materials for track repair and other related development works,” Mr Johri added.
When it was pointed out that tourism is the lifeline of the Nilgiris and there are calls to run NMR picnic specials between Ooty and Runnymede to further enhance the tourism potential and also to bring revenue to the railways, Mr Johri said that this would be considered.
