The “Philatelic Exhibition on Wheels,” which is under way covering important cities, is all set to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Over 3,000 stamps and postage covers on railway, collected by renowned philatelist, Mohd. Mujibullah, are on display on three railway coaches. The exhibition that began at Chennai Central on April 13 arrived here on Friday. It would cover eight important stations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Mr. Mujibullah told ‘The Hindu' that no individual had made such a big exhibition with huge number of exhibits on a single subject. Besides, it was the first time, and philatelic exhibition on wheels was covering 1,900 km. “The Southern Railway, its General Manager, Deepak Krishan, and the Collector (Mr. Mujibullah) will be in the Guinness Book of World,” he said.
The exhibition has stamps and postage covers from 156 countries that have been arranged in alphabetical order in two coaches. The unique feature of the expo is that it has the first postage stamp released on locomotive in Newburnswick as early as 1860.
“The exhibits from 1860 to those released some four months back, on the heritage railway stations in India,” are on the display, he said.
A 128-page exhibition in the third coach traces the history of railway, from the birth of steam locomotives to metro rail through stamps and covers. It also included construction on railroad, rolling stocks, railway stations, tracks, tunnels signals, electric engines, superfast trains, monorails and metro-rail.
Mr. Mujibullah said that he had over 7,500 out of over 8,000 stamps and covers released on railway. “It was because of the constraint of space in the coaches, I have restricted the number of exhibits to over 3,000,” he said.
He was planning to have a bigger expo on wheels with 14 coaches in November.
The country-wise exhibits would help young philatelists to know about the stamps and covers released by each country. Exhibits from US, Great Britain, Japan and India tops in the total number of stamps and covers.
The Additional Divisional Railway Manager, T. Venkatasubramanian, who inaugurated the exhibition, said that such an exhibition of international significance coming to cities like Madurai would inspire young philatelists.
The expo will be at Tirunelveli on Saturday between 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
