The Chennai Rail Museum at Villivakkam hosted miniature forms of trains this World Heritage Day, observed in the last week of April. People thronged to have a glimpse of miniature models of moving trains that brought to life the rich heritage of Indian railways, making visitors to the museum aware of the working of railway systems. The Voices captured the passion of collectors of scale model trains.
Swiss locomotives
The stall of M Vishwanath, an IT employee, featured a moving N-scale model of Swiss locomotives. Talking to The Voices, he said that it takes two to three hours to assemble the whole set, including the tracks. The other attraction at his stall was a miniature model of the Japanese electric train ‘Kato.’
Procuring trains
Collector M. Viswanath stated that procuring miniature train models is an arduous task, with some models costing between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000. While some train sets are purchased from other collectors, a few train models and accessories can also be obtained from online platforms.
Passion for trains and collecting their miniatures has been a lifelong passion for Shyam Malhotra, a railway enthusiast from Chennai, who has been creating miniatures for the past two years. His stall displayed a scale G model of a steam locomotive with freight wagons. He displayed a moving model of a train set that had been obtained from Germany.
Erstwhile Madras Central Railway Station brought to life
The model developed by R. Chandrasekaran, a senior technician at ICF (Integral Coach Factory), aimed to explain how railway transportation works. His stall featured a miniature model centered around the erstwhile Madras Central Railway Station. The model was complete with a functional railway signalling system and operational level crossing gates to explain to people the workings of railways, said Nagarajan, who accompanied Chandrasekaran.
Vintage European train
Joga Rao, also from Chennai, presented the vintage era of trains in Europe. He featured a Marx train set, which dated back to the 1950s. The Marx train sets are miniature sets produced by American toy manufacturer Louis Marx and Company, known for capturing the essence of real-world trains.
The tin plate made train set was presented with railway tracks passing through a replica of Bing Toy Station’s Germany, says Gerard, his nephew. The Bing stations’ toys were manufactured and sold before the Second World War. He added that the replica was more than 100 years old.
Vintage timetables
The displays of M. Somasundaram, a mechanical engineer and a rail enthusiast, offered glimpses into the train timetables used in South India during the British era as well as during the early years of independence. His collection comprised timetables from the 1920s to 1998. Madras and Southern Maratha Railway time tables from 1939 are part of his proud collection.
The first timetable of the Southern Railway came out in 1951, and it cost eight annas. Train timetables were quite different then, he said, showing a timetable’s cover page that featured an advertisement for the movie Or Iravu – One Night, produced by AVM Productions, one of the well-known film production companies of South India.
Copy Editor: Megha Mann