Nilgiri Mountain Railway : A vintage train journey

A ride on the Heritage Train that meanders the twists and turns along the slopes of the Nilgiri mountain ranges offering stunning views of the hills and valleys is a different experience altogether.

Running on steam locomotives, the UNESCO has added it as a World Heritage site and along with the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and The Kalka Simla Railway, forms a part of The Mountain Railways of India.

Let us take a look at this vintage train and its origins.

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway

The idea of this railway line was concieved in 1854 but it fructified only in June 1899. It is a meter gauge track running over a distance of almost 46 kms between Mettupalayam and Ooty. It was initially running only upto Coonoor but was later extended to Ooty .The railway line is special as it ascends from 300 mts to 2200 mts elevation over a distance of 46 kms.

Crossing more than 250 bridges and 16 tunnels, this is an engineering marvel of that time built by the British but several additions and repairs have been undertaken later.

One of the several bridges

And one tunnel

The steam engine

The NMR or toy train as it is popularly known belongs to the Government of India and is operated by the Southern Railway. It is the only rack railway in India and runs on rack and pinion to climb the steep gradient.

The rack and pinion track

The Journey

The uphill journey from Mettupalayam takes more than 4 1/2 hours while the downhill takes around 3 1/2 hours. A daily service up and down with more services between Coonoor and Ooty is the usual schedule with extra services during the summer peak season.

Some of the stations enroute are, Kallar, Runneymede, Coonoor, Wellington, Aravankadu, Ketti and Lovedale . Besides stopping at these stations, the train stops multiple times along the route and passengers get off and enjoy the coolness and the views. The speed is also very slow and one can easily get off and get on the train.

Passengers enjoy the scenery at one of the stops

The outside…

And the Inside…..

Most of the stations along the route have retained their colonial style buildings adding to the vintage look…

The colonial look at Coonoor station

One problem that I noticed was that sometimes the steam let out fills the coach specially inside a tunnel and then it can get a little uncomfortable. Apart from that, the ride is enjoyable.

At many places, the train runs parallel to the road but there are some really remote parts of the track and for those unique views , one has to travel by the train.

Some pictures from one such journey…