Saturday, April 15, 2023

Mysore Chronicle: Rail Museum


A
fter the inauguration of new Bangalore -Mysore express way, this was our first journey to Mysore. As usual a good plan was in place - with just one exception. We didn’t plan when to start from Bangalore. I usually want to start as early as possible, but one or other task will cost us some delay here and there. Eventually, we will end up being late. So this time, no plans to start early. We just decided to start in the morning!!!

After filling the back of the car to brim with all essential items for journey and a fortnight stay in Kerala, we started. One thing I noticed is, I packed quite less items when I travelled in bike in the past for same duration. Two saddle bags and a main bag was more than enough. When moved to more spacious car, someway luggage also increased!!!

Dedicated one for erstwhile Mysore queen

Traffic was normal and after spending time in some signals we left NICE road and entered Mysore express way. Its very wide; hardly much crowd. Long stretch of empty black top with a lot white straight lines stared at me under burning sun. In between those straight lines there where a lot of fast moving bulls and elephants (cars and lorries). After some ten - fifteen kilometers, driving was mostly monotonous. There was nothing to with steering or clutch; just accelerator was enough. 

Summer sun is not at all friendly, temperature was slowly but steadily rising outside. We reached Mysore couple of hours before lunch time. After having various dosas from A2B (near railway station), we drove towards rail museum. Its very close to the station. Entire area was very neat and clean. After buying tickets we three - me, divya and mother went inside.

First one the left was an area which show cases various gauges used by Indian Railways (IR) in the past. From narrow gauge to meter gauge to broad gauge. Now IR predominantly uses broad gauge. However narrow gauge is still used in some mountain lines like - Nilgiris, Kalka–Shimla etc. Lines inside Gir forest still use meter gauge and most metro networks are on standard gauge. 

Looking at various items used by IR in the past we moved forward and made our next stop at an old coal powered, heavy weight! engine. It was painted very neatly. I didn’t expect mom to climb up; but she enthusiastically did. We look at the area where workers moved coal from its storage to locomotive. It looked nostalgic, not that I travelled a lot through coal powered locomotives but due to old movies which showed the same thing. In that little space there was one more family where one guy was explaining how it works to his wife and trying to figure out how it looked like in the past. 

Train Locos





Moving further there were rail cranes which still proudly carry the engravings of British era. After moving around a bit we walked towards toy train's station. 

Entry ticket also includes a ride in toy train. It starts from a station(named Central Park) there in every 30 mins and run two rounds around the open area in the museum. We sat in a row somewhere in the back and waited for the train to start. After a while TTR! Came; checked our tickets. After waiting for some more time, loco came to life. After completing two circles, we got down and walked towards the exhibits in the middle. There was nice place to sit and look at the trees which are fully covered in violet flowers. Divya took her own stroll across the loan and looked at trees and metal heavy weight champions with great curiosity. 

Toy train coming out of tunnel

Well, it was time to go. We moved towards the exit. At one side, Maharani's couch was on display. We went there walked towards the other end reading different plaques which explains which areas inside that couch were used by maharani of erstwhile Mysore kingdom and for which purpose. The couch can't claim much aesthetic beauty; may be time took its toll. We slowly walked towards the exit.

If you already visited Mysore a couple of times and wanted to see something different, then Rail museum is a good place to go. Mysore railway junction is next door. As a standalone destination museum doesn't offer much, but kids might like it. 

Sajeev

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