Remembering the Nilgiri Mountain Railway before the pleasure journey ‘ends’

For a long time, honeymooners and journey-seekers have looked for romance and escapade travelling by the lush environmentally friendly mountains of Tamil Nadu in a 5-hour train journey. However the 46-km journey on Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) up and down the scenic route of Mettupalayam — at the foothills of Nilgiris — to Ooty continues to be relived and recounted in quite a few prepare tales of nostalgia.

Even so, just like with almost everything else, the NMR expert services were being stopped in March to stay clear of the spread of Covid-19. It has resumed expert services from December 31. But days before this, the NMR built headlines soon after a personal business — Selfmade Group TN 43 — compensated virtually Rs 5 lakh to operate the coach as a constitution provider earlier in December. It charged a whopping Rs 3,000 per seat, for a one journey even while the regular fare is Rs 600 for a first course ticket, and Rs 295 for 2nd course.

This exorbitant fare, besides an outrage among railway fanatics and passengers, led to speculations that it could be a prelude to attainable privatisation of the heritage route.

While the Southern Railways has denied any such go, the improvement dug up some nostalgia hooked up to NMR, which was accorded the Planet Heritage Web site standing by the Unesco 15 years back.