Building for the railway museum to come up at Mettupalayam has been completed and the first set of artefacts is expected to be ready in about a month, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) for Salem Division Shubhranshu said after inspecting works that are under way at the museum on Thursday.
The DRM told The Hindu that the museum now has four outdoor exhibits – a coach, a wagon, a locomotive and a crane.
“Some indoor exhibits in the Nilgiris Mountain Rail (NMR) centric museum are old signalling equipment and station equipment and undergear of locomotive and coaches of from NMR,” he said.
Mr. Shubhranshu said that work is also under way to prepare photographs and write ups to inform public about the heritage and semi-technical part of the operations of NMR over the years.
“However, it will take time for the museum to become a full-fledged as more exhibits have to be added,” he said.
The plans for expansion of the platform at the Mettupalayam station to accommodate 24 coaches – against the existing capacity of 13 coaches – were discussed by the DRM.
He also inaugurated a new coach maintenance office building.
After visiting the Coimbatore North Junction, he said that the construction of the new station building has been completed and will be inaugurated before the passenger and customer facilitation fortnight concludes on June 9.
He expressed confidence that shifting all the goods trains to Irugur Station to make the Coimbatore North Junction into a passenger station will be completed in a year.
Irugur station
“Works have to be carried out at Irugur Station to extend the platform from 550 metres to 700 metres, so that a full goods train can be accommodate,” the DRM said and added that the work will be carried out at Rs. 1.5 crore.
Mr. Shubhranshu said that opening the North Station for commuters could help in taking close to 7,000 of the more than 20,000 commuters stepping into Coimbatore Junction on a day-to-day basis.
