South India’s luxury train, the Golden Chariot, is turning eco-friendly to mark its tenth anniversary. The conventional toilets in all its 11 coaches are being replaced with bio-toilets, similar to those found on other luxury trains such as Maharasthra’s Deccan Odyssey.
The train is currently undergoing renovation at the Mysuru workshop. The coaches built before 2012 had been identified for retrofitting with the bio-toilets and the Mysuru workshop is one of the facilities besides Hubballi to put up such toilets.
Healthy work conditions
The reason behind switching over to bio-toilets was to ensure clean tracks besides facilitating a healthy working condition for the staff who work on the tracks daily as the luxury train makes overnight halts at several stations during its journey on the scheduled trips, officials said.
Kumar Pushkar, Managing Director, KSTDC, told The Hindu that 44 bio-toilets were being installed in place of the conventional ones in the eleven coaches. “On our request, the Railways agreed to replace them with the new-age bio-toilets that are similar to those found in other luxury trains,” he said.
Air-conditioning
Mr. Pushkar said the Railways were also attending to some issues with the air-conditioning systems besides replacing coach windowpanes for enhancing visibility for passengers. The suspension of all coaches is also getting strengthened.
The train’s coaches were also getting new body wraps both to look brand new and to portray the State’s cultural inheritance.
“The purple wrap with an ornate design had given a unique identity to the south India’s only luxury train. Now that it has completed ten years of its service, we thought of giving it a new-look albeit with the same colour. We are yet to finalise the designs for the wrap,” Mr. Pushkar said.
