Hyderabad: Salar Jung III Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan’s favourite toy trains, which were damaged and kept in storage for 48 years, are back on tracks.
Two electric toy trains made by Lionel Corp. of USA in 1930s and purchased by Salar Jung III, the great collector, will go on display at the Salar Jung Museum’s Children’s gallery soon.
Salar Jung Museum director Mr A. Nagender Reddy told DC the trains were repaired thanks to SCR general manager Ravindra Gupta, who called in technicians of Moula Ali Diesel Loco Shed for the job.
“Salar Jung, like many royals, was fascinated by toy trains. To send the trains to the US for repair would have been a costly affair. But thanks to SCR, the trains are back on track,” Mr Reddy said.
The two electric toy trains, with an engine and two bogies each, run on two tracks — meter gauge and broad gauge — with a background of the Nampally railway station. It has all the paraphernalia of a small town and railway network, like station, sheds, signals, water tank etc.
They were damaged when the museum was shifted from “Dewan-Deodi” near Madina to the present new building near Afzal Gunj in 1968. The train’s bogies are made of tin and the engines are zinc.
