Chennai Rail Museum

About

The Chennai Rail Museum is a railway museum in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. The museum opened on 16 April 2002 in the Furnishing Division of the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) near Perambur. The 6.25-acre (2.53 ha) museum has technical and heritage exhibits, with a sizable collection of steam engines from the British Raj. It also has vintage coaches (such as Ooty trains), which were endemic on Indian railways. Most of the older models were manufactured by the North British Locomotive Company, with some trains in the collection dating back more than a century. Toy-train rides are available. There are 3 air-conditioned Indoor Galleries (ICF Gallery, Rail History Gallery, Art Gallery, 2 Other Non-airconditioned Galleries, a 90-seater air-conditioned Dolby Digital Movie Theatre (Railway and Railway Heritage Films), Natyarangam, Amphitheatre, a Number of Metal Sculptures made from scrap, 3D MURAL at the entrance, Cartoon Hero Characters better viewed from the Joyous Toy Train Ride, Rail Coach Restaurant, Eco Green Park, Lust Green vegetation, etc., The museum is managed and maintained by the ICF. It is located in Perambur area, which is renowned for its Integral Coach Factory. 71 series buses connects Rail museum to prominent places like Broadway, Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore, Kilpauk, Ambattur and Avadi. The Regional Rail Museum (RRM, its original name) was established in March 2002. The Railway Board had a strong interest in its development, since it would be a model for other RRMs planned for Kolkata and Pune. The Chennai museum was first proposed in a 1993-94 suggestion by the Railway Board secretary to the ICF general manager, followed by meetings between the museum's future director and the ICF CE. It was inaugurated by Railway Minister Nitish Kumar on March 31, 2002, and opened to the public on April 16. The RRM was renamed the Chennai Rail Museum to commemorate the 377th Madras Day on August 22, 2016. The renovated museum, with a new Art gallery, was inaugurated on October 2, 2016 by Padma Bhushan recipient Padma Subrahmanyam in the presence of artist Manian Selvan and ICF General Manager S. Mani. The 6.5-acre (2.6 ha) museum has two galleries, a number of 19th-century outdoor heritage exhibits, a toy train that takes visitors around the perimeter, and a playground. Its collection includes indoor and outdoor exhibits. The indoor galleries contain photographs detailing the early years of the ICF and Indian Railways. The museum also houses working scale models of trains, and rare colonial-period artifacts. This will be the location of new exhibits for the museum's second decade. A video about Neal's ball token system (which provided signaling between trains) is featured, as well as a coach in which Mahatma Gandhi traveled. The museum's outdoor exhibits include 41 train models. An 1895 model of a Fowler steam ploughing engine (manufactured by John Fowler) and 1860s double-deck coaches are on display. Models include Coach of Inspection car RA 30 (manufactured by Metropolitan Carriage and Finance), Crane Hercules (used for emergency relief) and luxury coaches. Nearly all of the museum's coaches are accessible to visitors. The exhibits are interspersed with posters of high-speed trains from around the world, the history of Indian Railways and models of coaches made for Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Vietnam and Zambia. They also include a coach from the Mumbai suburban train network, old railway maps of India, century-old clocks, and a diesel-locomotive engine block. Outdoor exhibits include life-size models of a Nilgiri Mountain Railway coach, a GM inspection car, an MG EMU, a hospital van, a hand-operated crane, an overhead equipment car, a meter gauge EMU, and a variety of engines (steam, diesel and plough). The museum also contai

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.