Not in a hurry

 

 

“What’s your favourite colour? Favourite pet? Do you like the mountains or the ocean? . . . What do you prefer – train or airplane?” Even after discounting the (in)credibility of forwarded online tests confident of identifying your personality type (making neurotic gunmen more sure of themselves, and disappointing the Multiple Personality Disorder Union), I was still zapped by the last question. I mean, it’s like right brain – right brain – right brain . . . wake-up-left-brain! I mean, forgive my boss and his “Deadline? Yesterday!” bidding for having to fly down to most destinations for work, instead of chugging it, but how does that have anything to do with determining my disposition?

Damned if I allow any of the nearly 150 passengers aboard the Nilgiri Toy Train to have a say in this.

Train travel is for those who believe it’s the journey, not the destination that matters. And to be clamouring for a ticket on a mountain railway that hits 30 kmph at its best on its way to a popular hill station in southern India – Ooty, of late, becoming too popular for its own good – lying 88 kms from the nearest airport (Coimbatore) and well-connected by a pleasurable road and – faster – rail network, it’s all for the sake of the journey alone.

Leaving Coimbatore just as the birds were breaking into the song of dawn, we were at Mettupalayam after an hour in the local bus. If a ride through the Indian countryside, especially at that hour, doesn’t put a whistle on your lips, nothing can. (After many failed attempts, I snatched the one with the bus conductor.) 25 minutes to depart, it was already parked at platform No 2, the Mettupalayam-Udagamandalam (Ooty) Passenger or the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR), a UNESCO-inscribed World Heritage Site (WHS) since July 2005.

Only the third mountain train after our very own Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and the Semmering Railway (Austria) to make it to the WHS list, the NMR obviously attracts a good number of foreign tourists. While most of them had contentedly settled into their first class seats, quite a few along with equally intent locals had crowded around the TTE anxious for their waiting list (WL) reservation status. Harbouring a similar woe, I joined the solicitous gherao. Finally, at 7:15 am, even if in the WL compartment, I was being transported by world locomotive heritage.

Quite a few surveys would’ve had their criteria of demographics fulfilled in our coach. Young couples, both Indian and foreign, a local joint family complete with a wailing three-year old, a physically challenged lady accompanied by her husband, a medical student from Singapore, a bunch of bachelors from Bangalore, a teacher from Copenhagen, packed in with luggage clogging the aisle and yet everyone’s smiling sunny faces making up for the mist and the absence of sun. Within half an hour, the steam engine with a 3000 L boiler had stopped at Kallar, its first water stop. Plans to connect the foothills of the Nilgiris to the ‘Queen of Hill Stations’ were considered beginning 1854, but nothing came through until Swiss engineer Riggenbach proposed the rack and pinion system to tackle the steep gradient. Many revised outlays and restructured companies later, the metre gauge track was laid up to Coonoor and traffic opened in 1899. Extended to its current 46.61 km length in 1908, the Nilgiri Passenger makes the steepest climb in Asia – gradient 1 in 12.5: rising one foot over a distance of 12.5 feet until Coonoor – and is the only one pulling itself on the Alternate Biting Tooth System (ABT), or ‘ladder rail’. And to think, the rail was nearly discontinued in 1968 for incurring losses!

After Kallar began the ascent. Huffing and cooing, the four coaches are propelled by the engine latched at the back – yes, back – in a funny push-slip-push-slip movement. After crossing Hillgrove and water stops like Adderly and Runnymede, we reached Coonoor at 10:30 am and nearly all treated themselves to steaming bondas and idlis and vadas for the fun so far. Engine driver Nazeeruddin explained the 20-minute long break, “Since 1993, the steam engine is replaced by a diesel engine here and sent to Coonoor shed. The rack and pinion is not engaged for the rest of the travel.” Its driver since 1987, Nazeeruddin witnessed the switch from coal to furnace oil towards the heating mechanism a few years back. Every five years, the engines (seven in all, manufactured by Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works in Winterthur, now Stadler Rail) are sent to the Golden Rock Workshop in Trichy for maintenance upgrade.

As we passed through Wellington, Aravankadu, Ketti and Lovedale, the wind grew more chilly, though the sun had come out. Bored of the continually beautiful vistas outside, the couples went back to snogging, while the eligible ones untied a Darbuka drum from the luggage of a local and sang and made noise; the rest clapped. Through tunnels, over bridges, overlooking tea plantations and circumventing eucalyptus groves and pine, our iron-wheeled wonder ploughed on until we were at Udagamandalam just four minutes behind the scheduled 12 pm. As I chucked the ticket in the dustbin, I thought it not unfair to increase the fare by 100% even…