NILGIRI’S HILL TOWN’S TOURISM ECONOMY

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• Snaking its way up the steep Coonoor slopes, the engineering marvel that is the more than 125-year-old Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) line has become one of the primary drivers of tourism in the picturesque hill district of Udhagamandalam.
• One of the oldest mountain railway lines in India and among the three mountain railways that still run in the country, the 46.6-kilometre line from Mettupalayam to Udhagamandalam is renowned for its ‘rack and pinion’ mechanism that drives the train up the steep gradient of the Coonoorghat.

The oldest coal engine

• The ‘rack and pinion’ mechanism drives the train up the slope for around 19 km of its journey between Mettupalayam and Coonoor.
• “The line is also used by the oldest running coal engine in the world, built in Switzerland in 1914,” he points out.
• Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2005, the NMR has had more than one rebirth throughout its history, says Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC).
• The great Indian railway system was originally planned by Governor-General Lord Dalhousie while being on his sickbed in the Nilgiris in 1855. He suggested one strategic line from Madras (Chennai) to the western coast with a branch to the foot of the Nilgiris.
• Thanks to the perseverance and engineering acumen of the then Superintendent Engineer of Nilgiris, J.L.L. Morant, the link was extended from the foot of the hills to Coonoor and later to Ootacamund [Udhagamandalam] in a feat of rare engineering marvel,” he says.
• Dharmalingam says the system used in the NMR, known as the ABT system, was designed by Carl Roman Abt, a Swiss engineer.
• It was adopted by 72 mountain railways across the world in the ensuing years. “Currently, the NMR is the only railway anywhere in the world to continue using this system,” he adds.
• “A metre-gauge track was chosen on account of the hauling time and capacity and to connect the line ultimately with Mysore, which had a similar gauge. The link to Mysore never materialised.
• Two stations — Mettupalayam and Coonoor — were planned with watering stops at a three-mile interval, based on the water capacity of the engine, at Kallar, Adderley, Hillgrove and Runnymede.
• The line was then the only one of its kind in India and the second in the world,” he notes.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB