Nilgiri Mountain Railway

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Mettupalayam – Udagamandalam
A Nilgiri train on its way up the cogwheel section.
A Nilgiri train on its way up the cogwheel section.
Route length: 46 km
Gauge : 1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Maximum slope : 1:12 = 83  ‰
Rack system : Abbot, 2-lamellar
Top speed: Rack 13 km / h
Legend
End station - start of the route
 0 Mettupalayam Conn. to Coimbatore 350m
Station without passenger traffic
 8th Kallar 413m
Kilometers change
 8th Beginning of the rack section
Station without passenger traffic
 13 Adderly 784m
Station, station
 18th Hillgrove 1175m
Station without passenger traffic
 21st Runneymede 1513m
   
 25th Kateri Road 1663m
Kilometers change
 28 End of the rack section
Station, station
 28 Coonoor 1843m
Station, station
 29 Wellington 1904m
Station, station
 32 Aruvankadu 2015m
Station, station
 38 Ketti 2252m
Station, station
 42 Lovedale 2524m
End station - end of the line
 46 Udagamandalam (Ooty) 2371m
Sign in Coonoor train station celebrating NMR as a World Heritage Site.
Rack and pinion drive (here: single-lamellar rack).

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway ( NMR , Nilgiri mountain railway ) connects the town of Mettupalayam with the hill station Ootacamund ( Ooty ) in Nilgiri Mountains in South India . Both places are in the state of Tamil Nadu . It is the only Indian rack railway . The train uses 2-lamellar racks based on the Abt system developed by the Swiss engineer Roman Abt .

The NMR has a track width of 1000 mm , but no connection to other narrow-gauge railways. The feeder on the long-distance route to and from Chennai is an Indian Railways night train and is called the Nilgiri Express, Blue Mountain Express or Nilagiri Express.

history

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway is one of the oldest mountain railways in India. It was planned since 1845 and completed by the English in 1899 according to plans by the Swiss Niklaus Riggenbach . It was originally managed by the Madras Railway Company .

Today, the railway is one of only a handful of steam locomotives . The district Palghat of Indian Railways , which is responsible for the NMR today runs an annual loss of one of 40 million rupees. During the Nilgiri Mountain Railway centenary celebrations in 1999, then Minister of Railways, Nitish Kumar , announced that the line would soon be electrified . In July 2005, took UNESCO NMR as part of the World Heritage Site Mountain Railways of India to the list of World Heritage on after they met the requirements. Therefore the modernization plans were abandoned.

business

On the rack sections below Coonoor (Kunnur), trains are pushed up the mountain by steam locomotives from the Swiss Lokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik from Winterthur in order to overcome the steep incline , which is considerable for an adhesion railway . The average gradient is 1: 24.5 (40.8 ‰), the maximum gradient 1: 8.3 (120 ‰). The rack-and-pinion locomotives have separate drives for the adhesion wheels and for the drive gears, so that they can also run without a rack.

In 2007 there was only one train a day on the rack section in each direction. It starts in Mettupalayam in the early morning and returns there in the early evening.

Nilgiri Mountain Railway on a bridge, May 2010

Ordinary YDM4 diesel locomotives are used between Coonoor and Udagamandalam , which use conventional rail adhesion . On this route, the locomotive is always coupled on the Coonoor side of the train. The gradient 1:25 (40 ‰) is considerable, but not so strong that a gear drive would be necessary. In 2005 there were four trains daily in each direction.

The diesel locomotives can only be used in the upper section. Most repairs are done in the Coonoor shed, while the steam locomotives are overhauled in the Golden Rock workshops . Smaller repairs to the car are carried out in Mettupalayam, larger ones in one of the large workshops.

Due to severe landslides in November 2009, the railway did not run on the Mettupalayam – Coonoor section until May 1, 2010.

The distance

The train covers a distance of 46 km (28 miles), driving through 208 curves, 16 tunnels and 250 bridges. The ascent takes about 290 minutes, the descent 215.

  • Mettupalayam: 0 km, 350 m above sea level - connection to the broad gauge from and to Coimbatore . The passengers cross the platform to the Nilgiri train. There is a small engine shed and the line's car repair shops. The route between Mettupalayum and Kallar is operated in a conventional manner. It even falls a short distance before it crosses the Bhavani River and turns into a slight incline.
  • Kallar: 8 km, 413 m - No more passenger station, the cogwheel section begins here. At the beginning of the section the gradient is 1:12.
  • Adderly: 8 miles, 784 m - No more passenger station, stop for water supply.
  • Hillgrove: 18 km, 1175 m - stopover, stop for water supply and catering for passengers.
  • Runneymede: 21 km, 1513 m - no more passenger station, stop for water supply
  • Kateri Road: 25 km, 1663 m - No more passenger stations, no more stops.
  • Coonoor: 28 km, 1843 m - The main train station on the route. The workshops for the locomotives are located here at the end of the cogwheel section. The trains have to move back a little before they can continue their journey towards Udagamandalam. Usually, the steam locomotives are replaced by diesel locomotives here for the onward journey.
  • Wellington : 29 km, 1904 m
  • Aruvankadu : 32 km, 2015 m
  • Ketti : 38 km, 2252 m
  • Lovedale : 42 km, 2524 m
The route slopes down slightly from a place just before Lovedale to Ooty.

Picture gallery

  • The steam locomotive on the lower section

  • Wellington Railway Station

  • A train on the largest viaduct on the route

  • Nilgiri train in Ooty station

literature

Movie

  • Alexander Schweitzer : By train through ... India's Blue Mountains. Germany, SWR, 2009, 44 min. (French: Un billet de train pour l'Inde des montagnes Bleus.)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NMR added as a World Heritage Site
  2. ↑ Text excerpt from a Eisenbahnromantik report on the NMR, here as part of a travel recommendation at swr.de, accessed on February 19, 2011
  3. ↑ Coonoor-Mettupalayam track likely to begin by May 15 at Zee News from February 1, 2010

Web links

Commons : Nilgiri Mountain Railway  - Collection of images, videos and audio files