Heritage Rail Museum comes alive in Ooty

OOTY: The ‘Heritage Rail Museum’, another tourist attraction in the famed Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) that houses many old articles that were part and parcel of the 119-year-old NMR and that gives an insight into the history of mountain railway, has been thrown open to public here at the railway station.

It is pertinent to note that coinciding with the 230th birth centenary of John Sullivan on Friday,  the founder of modern Nilgiris, the ‘Heritage Rail Museum’, was formally inaugurated on Friday evening.

Of course, the museum provides a great opportunity to witness heritage railway articles: they range from ticket dating press machine, pinion wheel which is unique and symbolizes NMR, lamp post, hand signal lamp, gate signal lamp, token pouch, water container drum, type writer, water filter, iron water flask, well's paraffin gas lamp, petromax light, ticket tube, lamp burner, point indicator lamp, leather cash bag, wall clock to the station master’s room lamp. 

They give the present generation to re-live the history and learn about  genesis and development of NMR that began in 1899 and went on to become the ‘World Heritage Site’ in 2005.

While the ticket dating pressing machine will surely astonish the present cyber era generation as the machine exemplifies how the yesteryear railway technocrats planned the ticketing process, the pinion wheel gives live-demo on how the NMR chugs along the unique rack and pinion track in NMR.  Old photographs on NMR are an added attraction.

Mr. Jayaraj, a senior staff at NMR, formally inaugurated the ‘Heritage Rail Museum’ by cutting a ribbon.  Mr. Sateesh Saravanan, station director at Coimbatore, who was the chief guest for the inauguration, said that the museum in Ooty is being opened as many a tourist who visit Ooty, show keen interest in the NMR and in heritage train journey from Ooty station.

Stating that many of the exhibits in the museum are outdated  and a couple of articles such as token pouch are still being used, he said that this museum will be expanded further in future to make it special heritage tourism destination within the ‘heritage NMR’ to give heritage tourism further boost.