The Railway Board has sanctioned a loco simulator for the upcoming Rail Museum in Tiruchi housing prized vintage equipment used during the colonial era besides containing rare photographs and old documents in its rich collection.
A sum of Rs. 1.5 crore has been allocated for this purpose for installing the simulator on the sprawling museum which is expected to be thrown open to public soon.
The simulator will be an added attraction at the museum which would enable visitors to have a virtual feel of driving a locomotive while operating the equipment, railway officials said.
Established on an area of five acres, the museum building has been designed on the model of Chennai Egmore railway station and the Tiruchi Divisional Railway Manager’s office.
Although the museum building was inaugurated in February last year by the Southern Railway General Manager Rakesh Misra, it had not been thrown open to public as work was going on inside and outside the structure thereafter.
The work has reached the final stage of completion at the museum which would soon be thrown open to the public, a senior official said. A narrow gauge track to a length of 400 metres has been laid to operate a toy train with four coaches around the museum. The museum, which has four halls inside, contains a rich collection of rare photographs of different types of steam engines used in the colonial era, old railway gazettes, vintage railway equipment, including old rail chassis, joggled fish plates, clocks, and telephones.
The emblems of various State railway during the pre-Independence era, including the erstwhile South Indian Railway, Mysore State Railway, and the Great Indian Peninsular Railway have been kept inside in addition to the photographs of the architects of the then South Indian Railway. Old cupboards have been given a facelift which would contain old records and gazettes. Around 80 photographs and 400 old artefacts have been kept inside the museum.
A research centre is proposed to come up in the museum building’s first floor to be built, the official said.
