Excited voices filled the Madurai-Theni unreserved express on Friday morning on the first commercial run after broad gauge conversion.
It was a motley crowd - a group of friends, families with little children, aged people who used to take the steam loco-hauled Bodi Passenger for work and studies every day long back. A large number of them had started by bus from the Theni district early in the morning to catch the first train. Nostalgia aside, they wanted to record the ride for posterity.
Train Manager (Guard) P. Alagar Rajan said, “Yesterday, during the official inaugural run in the late evening hours, people boarded the train from all the three intermediary stations - Vadapalanji, Usilampatti, and Andipatti. Though it was planned to return to Madurai non-stop, we obliged their request and stopped at these stations on the return journey also to avoid inconvenience for them.”
When the decorated WDG 3A loco with 12 coaches left platform 6 of Madurai junction at 8.30 a.m. and weaved its way through the new tracks, there were cheers all the way. People waved from rail overbridges in Madurai, came out of houses lining the tracks, and took photos and videos. On the outskirts, men and women working on the fields waved to the train passengers.
A.N. Annamalai from PC Patti and M. Anandakumar from Kodangipatti were riding for the simple reason that they were not born during the inaugural run on MG in 1924. “We decided to take the first train on BG at least,” Mr. Annamalai, an accountant, said.
G. Valarmathi, an Accounts Officer on the verge of retirement, and six of her colleagues working in Tangedco in Periyakulam were taking the ride for the sake of nostalgia. “Fifteen of us in our office used to take the Bodi train for work from 1997. The rest have retired from service. But we are happy to see and talk to the locomotive pilots of those days at work today ,” she said.
Retired bankers S.G. Soundarapandian and M. Thambidurai from Madurai were just taking a fun ride. “The railways must extend the line from Bodi to Kerala for the common good, without saying any excuse of difficult high altitude terrain, viability factor, et al. Now, we have vast tunnelling expertise. It must be done for the long run,” Mr. Soundarapandian said.
R. Tamilvanan from Usilampatti had a grouse, though. “The train runs during peak hours. So when railway gates are closed at many places en route, office-goers and students are affected. So work on rail overbridges must be either started or expedited,” he said.
People from Bodi, particularly cardamom merchants, want the railways to lay the tracks to train to Bodi early and operate direct trains to Chennai, Bengaluru and Coimbatore and capture the lucrative omni bus traffic.
