Railways to launch special trains connecting heritage sites: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday unveiled a special train that would be run on Heritage routes across the country. The Minister after inspecting a train modified as a steam loco train at the MGR Central Railway Station here said more such trains would be introduced on heritage routes in the coming months. Elaborating on the concept, Vaishnaw said the Railways had planned to introduce a new concept — 'Heritage special' which would be built using 'steam engines' as the theme.

«The steam engine as we all know, is very emotionally connected to us and even though it is not running today, we thought we can create a new concept that looks like a steam engine but actually operates by electricity,» he told reporters. The Minister, who began his speech in Tamil, said the special concept was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he (the PM) believes in the concept which is 'virasat bhi, vikas bhi' which means 'heritage' and 'development' should go together. «This new concept has been created as heritage special, I thank the very good technical officers, staff and Golden Rock Railway Workshop, Tiruchirappalli, Perambur, and Avadi who have all contributed in creating this concept,» he said.

To a query, he said the special train would be first tested on long heritage routes and later it would be open for tourists in two-three months. «We will first try this and then manufacture more of this. In another two or three months, it should get into public use.

Basically, our testing on the ground is complete, we received the safety certificate for it. we will be running it on longer routes and then take it into regular commercial operation» he said. Vaishnaw said the Ministry would initially look at popular heritage