#  >  > Travellers Tales in Thailand and Asia >  >  > Vietnam, Nepal and Burma  Travel Forum >  >  Trainspotting: Getting the Dope - Delhi

## Roobarb

OK, so an admission from the outset: this thread has more to do with the practical applications of Boyles law than the film directed by Danny Boyle, but the ambiguity in the title may have made some of you open this thread that otherwise would have ignored it.

Now some people are rather into trains...



... I'm not one of them


My thoughts on trains are largely limited to reckoning that in some parts of the world they can provide a fairly decent form of transportation




and in other parts of the world, certainly nearer to where I currently live, they are a bit more challenging




In fairness though things are not a lot better in my home country

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## Roobarb

The other Sunday I found myself on offspring-watching duty and, being someone with a limited imagination, decided to take the kids to the Delhi railway museum for what is probably the third time in the last eighteen months.

I like the place because it's a sort of elephant's graveyard for old railway clutter in the heart of downtown Delhi.  Whilst the exhibits don't change, they are all in various states of decay and patiently await a restoration that may or may not ever come.  Moreover the whole thing is in a park-like setting and really very pleasant to wander around in.

Roobarb minor is quite fond of it because of a deep seated conviction he has that the next engine he will see is Thomas the Tank Engine.  Roobarb minimus seems quite happy with anything so long as she can run around outside and poke her older sibling with a stick from time to time to provoke a reaction.  

The railway museum is not really Mrs. Roobarb's cup of tea but, as she had something else on that day, happily this was not a consideration.

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## Roobarb

The lurking interest in steam engines is really only that they represent the enormous strides made in engineering during the Victorian age.  Back then people would take an idea and keep making it bigger and ever more powerful so that it did larger amounts of whatever it was meant to do more efficiently than anything that preceded it.

It's a sort of 'hit it with an increasingly heavy sledgehammer' approach to engineering.  As someone with little technical ability I admire the way they thought.

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## wasabi

It was the British that brought Railways to Africa,Australia and India,and Indians built and ran the first railway line from Nairobi Kenya to Uganda.

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## Roobarb

Good point Wasabi, as a bit of background here's a few examples of what I mean by large scale Victorian engineering - all in the UK:

The Anderton Boat Lift, North West England.  Built 1875 and ran for 100 years before being closed temporarily for refurbishment.

The problem was how to raise your canal barges by fifty feet from one canal to another without making lots of time-consuming locks.



The answer was to build an enormous lift.  Each caisson (the basin that the boat sits in) weighs 272 tons when full and will take two floating narrowboats of up to 72 feet length at a time.



What's clever about the whole thing is that the two caissons are controlled by hydraulics within large rams sunk into the ground that are joined with a small pipe.  By simply filling the top caisson a little more than the bottom one the lift automatically starts working.  The whole mechanism needed very little power to operate and the framework only needs to support the lateral movement of the caissons rather than support their whole weight.

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## Roobarb

Impressive, but the boat lift is not thinking really big, so how about this one:

The problem was this:  How to get your steelworkers from the side of the river where they lived to the other side of the river where they worked without then having to make a four mile commute via the nearest bridge.  Two things to bear in mind are that the bridge needs to allow large ships underneath and the river is very tidal which means that running ferries is not practical.

I give you the Newport Transporter Bridge, South Wales.  Built in 1906, ran for 80 years before being closed for refurbishment.




See that little blue pointed roof thing by the left hand leg in the foreground?  It's actually this thing:



The cars give a sense of scale, the towers are about 250 feet tall





Nowadays we would just assume that it's all too difficult and outsource the work to China instead...

.. and China's solution for getting workers over the river may look something like this:

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## Roobarb

OK, the last one I promise, and this may be where the fascination in this sort of thing started for me as for a few years I grew up in its shadows:


The Forth Rail Bridge:

Started in 1882 and completed in 1889.  It was built using steel, and this is significant because using steel as a construction material was in its infancy.  The process developed to ensure the consistent quality of steel was perfected a mere seven years before construction began.




The bridge stands 100 metres high (300 or so feet) and weighs seven times as much as the Eiffel Tower, which was completed in the same year and in technologically boring wrought iron.



Look at the size of the train on the right.  To build something on this scale using a relatively unknown material is extraordinarily brave, especially given it was started in the shadows of the well publicised collapse of the nearby Tay railway bridge just three years before, killing 75 people.




6.5 million rivets were used in making this thing (according to Wikipedia)




I know that to many of you this is just another bridge, but to me it's a stunning design.




A picture of the designers, Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker demonstrating the principle behind the bridge. Interestingly the chap in the middle, Kaichi Watanabe, had come from Japan to study engineering, and had stayed onto become a site foreman during the construction of the bridge.

We think expat life is tough because the local supermarket sometimes runs out of mature cheddar cheese.  I wonder what he made of Victorian Scotland when compared to life at home in Imperial Japan.

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## Roobarb

As their collective knowledge increased, rather than just dreaming bigger and bigger, inventive types began to stretch the boundaries of known technology.  These were the fellows who would look at someone like me happily banging away at something with an ever heavier hammer and instead think of a clever way of doing it faster, quieter and more efficiently. 

It wasn't just engineers who were at it.  There was a widespread optimism that technology would tame the dangers of nature.  Jules Verne wrote '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' in 1869.  This was at a time when the most advanced submarines were hand-cranked metal tubes killing little other than their own crews in the American civil war.  The sky, or in this particular case the sea floor, was the limit.

Coincidentally, according to a man with a beard, one of the inspirations for the 'classic' Disney depiction of the Nautilus (the submarine in '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' - see the pic below) was apparently the Forth Rail Bridge 



Link to the website below:

http://mikespassingthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/trivia-about-the-nautilus-from-disneys-20000-leagues-under-the-sea/

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## blue

> The other Sunday I found myself on offspring-watching duty and, being someone with a limited imagination, decided to take the kids to the Delhi railway museum


hint

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## Roobarb

Steam engines, the development of which by and large spanned the Victorian era, are a great example of the engineering achievements of that time.  There were many explosions, disasters and dead-ends that went simply nowhere, but overall it was evolution driven by human endeavor and daring to thing big.  

I like steam engines as they represent a man-made solution to a problem that, until then, man didn't realise that he had.  It's all about progress and pushing the boundaries of our understanding, and that's a good thing.


Whilst not the first steam engine, Stephenson's Rocket is where is all started in terms of serving a useful service to the public.



Seen though modern-day eyes, one might cynically suggest that actually the first useful service it performed for the public was to kill a local politician during the opening ceremony for the railway it was due to serve on in 1830.  For the next few years Rocket's service was more in line with its design brief before technology soon overtook it.  Rocket was retired in 1862 and donated to a museum.

Spool it forwards to just over 100 years from Rocket's debut and we reach what is probably the peak of steam engine design in the Mallard, which in 1938 created the record as the fastest ever steam engine at 125.88 mph




This really did mark the end of steam engine development for two reasons: 

- Firstly, the second world war allowed for the rapid growth of newer technologies (plus drained resources for developing older ones)

- Secondly, Mallard's record, whilst impressive, didn't make it the fastest train in the world.  The record had already been set at 127 mph in Germany with a diesel-electric train in 1936.

As an odd side note, the record was set by a development model of an engine that was improbably named the 'Flying Hamburger' (really, that was its name.   In German it's 'Fliegender Hamburger').



The 'Flying Hamburger'


It even looks like one of Ray Kroc's finest, with a side order of fairly officious Germanic-looking fries.

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## Roobarb

Technology today is visually dull.



However exciting the probable discovery of the Higgs Bosun has been, a bunch of tiny particles zapping around the Large Hadron Collider in the hope of creating a particle with a half life so short that it is nearly impossible to detect simply doesn't compare to 100 tons of glistening metal barrelling majestically through the countryside, steam and smoke billowing forth.



It stirs the soul.  This was made by men, in sheds, with hammers and bits of metal and sweat and rivets and fire and stuff.

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## Roobarb

^^  Good Lord, you're absolutely right Blue, I seem to have meandered off on a tangent.  This was about a kid's day out.

Apologies all.

So, if any of you ever find yourselves in Delhi over a weekend and are looking for somewhere to go to escape the confines of the hotel then the railway museum is a great way of whiling away a few hours. Take a beer or two and some sandwiches as eating options there are limited, but there are plenty of places to sit, have a picnic, read a book, have a doze and generally pretend you are somewhere else.  There are normally a few other punters wandering around, but it never seems to become in any way crowded.

To give you an idea on where it is, the red circle marks the spot:




A bit closer in:




Basically just behind the New Zealand and Philippine Embassies, and next to the Bhutanese one.

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## Roobarb

Getting in is a breeze, not much of a queue




Have a look at the sign below.  I can't read Hindi (so much so that in retrospect I seem to have cut off half the notice in the photo) but it does appear that irrespective of nationality the pricing is the same.  20 Rupees for adults (about 10 Baht) and 10 Rupees for children who appear to be more than three years old.  Thai attractions take note...



There are some places here that do have a Thai-style dual-pricing policy - Delhi zoo for one - but when you turn up looking foreign you are immediately guided to the front of a long queue of locals, asked to pay a fee that is only a few more Rupees than the Indian rate and a few seconds later you are in.  I don't mind paying a first class fare if I get a first class service (note - in my case this applies more to Indian zoos than to air travel). 

When you get your tickets for the museum you are asked if you want to get tickets for the miniature railway at the museum, called the Toy Train.  Now, be warned, this will double the cost of your visit so do think long and hard about whether it's worth it or not.  If you have small kids with you then it probably is, if you don't, well, up to you.  If you are still sitting on the fence and worried about going the extra twenty Rupees then you can get Toy Train tickets a bit later near to the platform it leaves from.

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## beerlaodrinker

Interesting thread roobarb , watched a doco about the building of the forth bridge on the telly a while back , Indeed train travel in india is challenging but i found the trick is to cough up for a first class sleeper and then it would be a doddle, saw a few farangs in the 3rd class section on the madras to delhi line once, they looked like shit when we finally pulled in to delhi, fok that , you would have to sleep with one eye open

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## Roobarb

Once inside the entrance the first thing you come across is this jolly little number



Before the Hong Kong fraternity get overly excited, I believe that 'MTR' actually has something to do with the engine previously working at the Marala Timber depot.

You'll see hanging on the front of the boiler a sign with a pair of headphones.  Just to the rear of the engine is a small hut where you can rent a sort of mp3 thing and get an audio tour of all the exhibits.  The rental is just 75 Rupees and they have both Hindi and English commentary.  You need to leave a photo ID card of some sort (foreign driving license will do).

Now, I was expecting the commentary to be either some fearfully dull fellow rambling on interminably about couplings and signals, or someone muttering away in an incomprehensible cross between Hindi and English about Lord knows what.  The cynical side of me was also expecting that the battery on the mp3 player would last no longer than five minutes.



Sennheiser - I'm impressed.


I was pleasantly surprised at the quality at the commentary, although I didn't actually use it that much.  With two small children in tow I was already running at just about full mental capacity.  What I did hear was actually quite good, if just ever so slightly odd.

There was a young-sounding couple reading a rather well written script.  The odd part was, well, you know those slightly cheesy TV ads with a youngish sort of newly wed husband and wife combo, the ones where the husband asks something only for the wife to be slightly too clever in her solution:

_Man: "How do I get these stains off my shirt collar?"

Woman (smiling lovingly): "Give it to me.  This is a job for new Wizzo Ultra.  It's specially formulated to get rid of the sort of stubborn stains that normal powder just won't clean.  What's more, with a non-bio conditioner built in, your shirts will come out as soft and as fresh as new"

Man (with a look of total admiration): "Gosh darling, you are wonderful."

(Obviously as the marriage matures what this will translate to is "God you're dull.  You actually read detergent boxes.  You do the laundry, I'm off down the boozer")

 


_This sort of dialogue is fine for washing powder, but not so good when talking about trains:
_
Man: "Gosh, this is a big green engine, I wonder what it is?_"

_Woman (smiling lovingly): "This of course if the wide gauge Chesapeake 2-6-4 with double reciprocating donkey pistons, an asymmetrical firebox and full off-road suspension.  Interestingly the boiler was blah blah blah."  
_
_Man (feeling strangely emasculated): "So it was used to pull passenger trains?"

Woman (who can't resist a small, superior chuckle): "Yes, indeed, the wonderful thing about these type of locomotives, especially when compared with the previous generation, was that their axle configuration allowed for far greater traction on the steep inclines giving them a blah blah blah."

Man (already left by this stage and heading down to the boozer)

_Anyway, it's good information and well presented, well worth the 75 Rupees in case you were wondering.

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## Roobarb

^^ Too right there BLD.  First class is the only way to go on trains here.

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## Iceman123

Well done Roobarb - brought back memories with that forth rail bridge - I used to live in Barnton close by

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## KEVIN2008

Not a good pic, as it was one cold day.   :Smile:

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## Roobarb

Iceman, it's a curiously evocative structure.  We were in Rosyth, I was about 5 years old at the time.  In all honesty there is little I remember of the place that inspired any form of awe other than the bridge.  I hope it is more a reflection of how old I was than a reflection on Rosyth, but...

Kevin - although having said the above, I do remember it getting mind-numbingly cold up there though.  Perhaps brain-freeze is why the memories of the place are a bit limited.  Really great photo BTW, many thanks for sharing it.

I was going to update a bit more now, but I am 'getting looks' so it'll have to wait.

Cheers

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## Iceman123

No Roobarb,

There was never anything about Rosyth to inspire.

The naval base was there - open days had some great naval and harrier displays but the town itself was a s...hole.

No question a great bridge - much more imposing to me than it's arguably more famous and newer brother the road bridge.

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## somtamslap

Nice one Roobarb!

Any chance of knocking up a Delhi Food thread?

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## reddog

you have to give it to the poms,of all the empire builders they always built
train lines,meant the locals could travel a great distance in their own country.
was on a 3rd class sleeper once in india, was sleeping in the upper bunk,
woke up to find a local had put my shoes on,and tried to argue they were his,
a threat of a good smack in the mouth was needed to convince him 
to hand them over

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## Davis Knowlton

> Once inside the entrance the first thing you come across is this jolly little number


Great thread. I lived in Delhi 83-86, and used to drop by on occasion. It looks unchanged.

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## Ronin

> In fairness though things are not a lot better in my home country


Having lived in London for the last 32 years one has to remember the population is a good deal bigger than it was and the transport system is now much busier. The increase in the availability of cheap flights also contributes since many travelers chose the tube as their preferred means to get to Heathrow.  When I first moved to London there were times of the day when you could find quiet trains with plenty of empty seats but that seldom happens now.  In addition the Thatcher era meant little or no investment in Britain's railways.  We are now playing a game of 'catch up' the rest of Europe, most notably the French and Germans have much better and more reliable services.

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## patsycat

I lived in Edinburgh and often took the train across the Forth Rail Bridge.  What i love now is arriving at Edinburgh Airport and flying over the bridges.

A lovely sight.

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## Roobarb

Thanks for your comments everyone.


Slap - the only two problems with me doing a Delhi food thread are:

1) I really don't know me bhati from me aloo when it comes to the local food

2) In order to get down and dirty with a proper review of Indian food I would still need to be prepared for some dirty downtime afterwards.

On saying that it's far from a bad idea for a thread. I could perhaps break myself in gently by reviewing some of the local deli food before reviewing the local Delhi food?

"This* is* a lovely slice of quiche lorraine, and ooh, ooh, look over there: they've got stuffed olives..."

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## Roobarb

So where were we?

Goodness, 25 posts already and I've barely made it past the gate.

Time to get some bearings:



The entrance gate is at the top, just below where the car park is.  The 'MTR' engine from a previous post is just inside the gate.

The museum is largely outdoors, running from the white circular building on the left, past the kidney shaped green thing (actually a pond with a snack shop in the middle) and down to the bottom left.

Once past the gate you walk up the service road to somewhere near to the circular building, after which you are in the park and free to wander as you want.  for those who like to know where they are all the time, we meandered from the top left to the bottom right and back again in a sort of clockwise fashion.

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## Roobarb

Having just looked through the acreage of largely irrelevant posts I've made so far I get the distinct feeling that I've been avoiding the next bit.  In all honestly I know very little about any of the engines here (or indeed anywhere), and so have no idea what I'll say about them. 

Anyway, here goes:



It's a steam engine. 

Um, quite a big one it appears...


This is followed by a couple of open sided sheds with another engine or two:



A green one that, according to the small expert in these matters who was accompanying me, is not even a distant relation of Percy



Obvious really.

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## Roobarb

The next one had a crown on its funnel that gave it a rather regal look.




Immediately behind it was this rather ratty looking carriage



But, being one of the few exhibits with a sign saying what it is, it appears that it also has something of a royal claim




Peering in through the windows there's what I assume to be a staff area at one end:




And, if you can make it out past the gloom and the reflection on the glass, what I assume to be the royal suite.




I have to say it's not what you would call palatial.  Sitting in that thing with no air conditioning for hours on end as it slowly clanked though the dusty Indian interior must have been quite tiresome.

Reminds me more of the sort of thing you might use nowadays to transport prisoners rather than royals, unless you didn't like the royal very much - which might be a consideration here?

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## Roobarb

Opposite the engine sheds is housed something that is a genuine oddity.

It is a steam powered monorail.



Not the prettiest of things but the theory behind the Patiala Monorail was sound:

- A really good way of minimising the rolling friction of a vehicle is to use steel wheels on a flat steel surface (hence build a railway)

- One of the complicated parts of building a railway is ensuring that both rails rise/fall/bank in conjunction with each other to minimise the chances of a train derailing.  Just building a single rail is much easier to deal with.

- A limitation of a railway is that corners can't be too tight due to curve resistance.  If the outside wheel can't keep up with the inside wheel then there is a chance that the train can derail.  Anyone who has been on a Hong Kong tram as it judders and shakes it way around the tight corners would have felt the effect.

How it worked therefore was that a single rail was laid next to a road.  The engine places about 95% of its weight on the single rail and 5% on a wheel attached to an outrigger that runs on the edge of the road.




Friction is therefore kept to a minimum, there's no need to be too accurate about how the rail is laid (keeps it cheap and simple) and you can weave it through fairly tight city streets.




The coaches and wagons it hauled worked on the same principle

 


The great thing is that the engine still runs, and from time to time they fire it up and take it for a run around the museum.  Here's a video someone else shot of it and put on Youtube - if I can work out how to attach it.




Gosh, if the you tube link works that was really easy, I spent ten minutes messing about trying to be clever before simply cutting and pasting the URL...

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## Roobarb

A bit further along is this diesel electric thing




From the days when the UK actually made stuff

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## Roobarb

I know nothing at all about this one



To my uneducated eyes it does look sort of American in shape, with the big light and the cow catcher and, er, whitewall tyres.  I suspect though it was locally built.


A view back down the tracks

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## Roobarb

Now, this was one that I did listen to the newlyweds' audio commentary on, and since then I can remember nothing about what they said other than it is an American engine, and they pointed out that it had a massive tender



Roobarb minor seems suitably impressed





I didn't get a decent side picture so the one below I nicked off Tripadvisor's site.  Must have been taken a few years back as there seems to be a lot more rust now.

Davis, given you were here back in the '80s I suspect that many of the  exhibits are now a bit more 'weathered' than you would have remembered them.  It's really a  shame that there is not a better maintenance programme.



I don't know if it is just my imagination, but US engines seem to have much more in the way of pipes and things on the sides of their boilers than UK ones.  Gives them a purposeful look, albeit in a sort of 'Back to the Future' way.

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## Roobarb

Turntable - yup, knocked together in a shed in the UK and then shipped all the way out to India.



Talking of tables turning, I wonder if in 100 years time there will be Indians and Chinese staring in incredulity at heavy engineering from their countries that was shipped to the west around this time, wondering why a poor, third world country like the UK wouldn't have made the things themselves rather than buy them from a country as developed (and expensive) as theirs.  

It's tempting to think that whatever these guys make now would have fallen apart long before that happens, but...

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## Roobarb

Yes, it is exactly as it looks.  I think these things were called Rail Cars, for fairly obvious reasons:



From what I understand, these were used on fairly small, remote lines such as the ones serving hill stations and tea plantations.  Like the Patiala State Monorail, not necessarily the prettiest solution but eminently practical.

Here's a picture (of a picture) of something similar doing its stuff:



Actually, whilst trying to find some information on the net to give me something to write about I came across another forum with a thread started by the Director of the National Rail Museum asking for help in restoring this back in 2009

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/pre-war/104105-national-rail-museum-matheran-rail-car.html


It seems that the museum is mainly supported by the passion of the few rather than actual money as sadly, whilst the will was clearly there to restore this in 2009, four years later and there is little change.

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## Roobarb

Next up, a pair of huge Swiss Electric engines

First one:

Named Sir Leslie Wilson after the Governor of Bombay, this was one of the earliest electric locomotives in India.  I understand it was imported in 1928, the year it's namesake (the Governor) left.



Apparently the design is referred to as being a crocodile locomotive because of the long 'snout' at each end.  The first ten of these cane from the Swiss factory, after which they were built under license in Lancashire, UK in the very cool sounding Vulcan Foundry.

Well thought out wheel and axle configuration too, ideal for the Indian market as it creates a useful shaded space underneath for a chapatti and a chinwag.

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## Roobarb

The second of the Swiss Electric engines is next.

The Sir Roger Lumley also arrived in India in 1928.  This, according to Wikipedia at least, was the first ever electric locomotive to be used in India. 

For me though there is another reason I am left thinking about this one.





It's probably a combination of the name and the obvious amounts of undercarriage on show that reminds me of another Lumley with some fairly fine underpinnings.



Whilst the primary purpose of the research is obviously to have a bit of a perv at a wonderful set of legs, there is a bit of a link as Joanna Lumley was actually born in India and I wanted to see if she was in any way related to Sir Roger.  

From the two minutes I spent on the question it appears not.  Sir Roger was the Governor of Bombay from 1937 to 1943, Joanna was born after then.  They could be related, but somehow my research started to wander off course before I could find out.



A fine woman...

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## Roobarb

Changing gear a bit we come to a funny little train, it's almost cartoon-like in its proportions:




Since my first visit the paint has been stripped off the engine and the carriages seem to have improved in their appearance, so it does seem that this particular combination is undergoing a bit of a restoration.




It's pretty old this one:




I did find a picture of a similar looking train on Wikipedia, called a Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Class B



The name would lead one to believe that it clanked around in the hillier areas of northern India.  I suppose that it was probably the next step up from the Rail Car we saw earlier.  The funny small sized carriages now seem to make a bit more sense.

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## Roobarb

We've finally reached the far end of the museum, and at the end is a small tunnel that the Toy Train runs through.  On top of that is a tiny engine, which can also be seen from the main road.



Again, I remember very little about what the audio guides said other than it was, as far as locomotives go, very small indeed.  Possibly the smallest one ever in India.


Having watched the file "The Railway Children" a few weeks back, I think the kids are doing a sort of reenactment as the Toy Train runs into the tunnel below.




Nice to see that at least the road-facing topiary is kept in good shape

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## Roobarb

Going to the other end of the spectrum in terms of size, immediately below the tunnel is this huge great thing:



As is probably quite clear my knowledge of steam trains is limited.  However I mentioned this to a chum of mine who knows about this sort of thing and at the mention of the Beyer Garratt he became all misty-eyed.




The idea of the Garratt was to give two separate engines with one single, large boiler slung between them.  What this meant was that you only needed one crew rather than two for the same amount of power.

The Garratts could have a far larger diameter boiler than conventionally configured engines (whilst keeping the centre of gravity within reasonable bounds) as there was no need to allow room for wheels underneath it.  The larger diameter also meant that boilers could be shorter in length than ones of the same volume on a conventional engine, which allowed for greater maneuverability.

Garratts were exported all over the world, to places as diverse as New Zealand, the USSR, Brazil, Rhodesia and Iran.  Oddly though, few were ever used in Britain.

This one seems to have some form of water catching device underneath it, at least I think that's what it is:

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## Roobarb

The photo below is of the same locomotive taken some time ago at the museum.  I'm not too sure when the photo is from, but judging by the growth of the trees it was more than a few years back.



The sad truth is that this is another piece of history that is in decline

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## Roobarb

Earlier on I had suggested that I thought the Mallard, the fastest recorded steam locomotive, marked the peak of steam engine design, but in retrospect I now think I was wrong.  

Mallard was undoubtedly a technological wonder, but ultimately all it did was take you from London to Manchester ten minutes sooner than its predecessor.  Besides that, in the greater scheme of things, technology had already overtaken Mallard.  The only reason that it's record remains unbroken is that the record became irrelevant almost as soon as it was achieved.

The Garratt opened up entire continents, linking up far-flung parts of the empire.  It hauled the raw materials that fuelled progress.  It pushed the boundaries of what was possible by adding scale in an enormous way.




It is an absolute representation of the Victorian style of engineering that had driven the development of the steam engine since its inception.

Perhaps then this is why the  Garratt, along with some of the large locomotives similarly opening up  the frontiers in North America, is actually what represents the pinnacle  of steam engine design.  After this point no steam engine was going to  do any more to drive progress.
 


It was in some ways though a  dinosaur before it had ever been developed. The two Swiss Electric engines we saw earlier, both in use in India for two years before this Garratt was built, represented the beginning of viable alternatives to steam.   






The world was about to change.  The empire that the Garratt was sent to serve was soon to disappear.

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## Roobarb

And so the age of steam was over



First in continental Europe, then in the UK and North America, cleaner and more efficient means of powering locomotives began to take over. 



Steam engines around the world ended up being consigned to sidings such as this, awaiting their fate.

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## Roobarb

Most would be cut up for scrap, others would gently rot away in forgotten corners of the world. 





With the death of steam, so the requirements to service the steam railways died. 

British industry, once at the forefront of railway technology, was now just one of many sources of supply, more often than not representing the old rather than the new way of doing things.

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## Roobarb

Enthusiasts talk about the magnificence of steam engines.  It's not a word that I would probably use but I do see what they mean.



Unlike the quiet hum of an electric motor, or the constant rumble of a diesel engine, these were living things.  They needed constant attention to get the best out of them.  Stop feeding them coal and water and they die.  They panted plumes of steam and smoke as they worked harder.  They literally had fire in their bellies.



Somehow it is rather sad to walk amongst the shells of what had once lived and breathed, machines that helped drive the progress of humankind, only to end up being a victim of it.

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## Roobarb

One wonders what will happen to some of these engines.  The museum is clearly doing what it can to keep them from the scrapyard, but there is so much to do.





It doesn't seem the pace of restoration can outrun the slow but constant decline

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## Roobarb

It was about this time that I was snapped out of my somewhat melancholy state by a more immediate problem.

"Daddy, I'm hungryyyy"

Now the problem is that, being a father, the thought of having to feed the kids had not really occurred to me and eating options at the museum are very, very limited.

There is a little snack bar thing which has a fridge with water and a few boxes of juice and they generally sell one or two varieties of crisps or biscuits, but it really depends on what the guy who runs it has bought from the local shop to resell there.

The other thing to note is that it seems to shut between 12.30 and 1.00 pm for, er, lunch.

This time we managed to rustle up a meal that I was rather proud of.  It was only when quizzed later that evening I learned the error of my ways.



A Limca (fizzy lemonade thing) for the older one, and an orange juice thing for the younger one and a rather odd fruitcake to eat. 

I show this only to warn other fathers who think that this might be suitable fare for little 'uns to be wary that their mothers may think otherwise.

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## Roobarb

Suitably refreshed, and in an altogether happier state of mind we strolled past a few more exhibits:



This was an interesting one.  It's a fireless steam engine.

Apparently it was built to work in a nitrate factory where for some reason they tend to frown on open flames.

What happens is that the bit that would have been the boiler in the front is actually a tank that is filled with pressurised steam, I guess through the valve affair at the front.  The engine then sort of hisses around doing things until it, um, runs out of steam as it were, whereupon it is refilled.

Built by the Germans it appears.

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## Roobarb

Some other exhibits:

A French job perhaps?

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## Roobarb

Looks like an army truck, possibly with a mounting for some type of heavy gun in the centre, although it was full of stuff so I couldn't see to be sure.

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## Roobarb

There was another one of these Rail Cars in a shed



This time a Wickham, or at least that's what it said on the front

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## Roobarb

This one was in relatively good nick



By now the kids were beginning to run out of steam.  Happily we had made it back to the where we had started so decided to take a quick dive into the museum building.

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## Roobarb

Please forgive the ratty photography, my phone was struggling with the light in there

Just inside the door there is an old 1914 Morris fire engine.



Apparently there are only two of these in existence, one in Delhi and one in the UK.  The Delhi one still runs on its original spec solid rubber tyres so it considered to be more original than the UK one.

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## Roobarb

A few models of trains, and old builders plates from long-gone engines on the wall behind




Those who have been paying attention all the way through this thread will recognise what this is a model of  :Smile: 



In a way that sums up the eclectic nature of the museum, the exhibit that is just visible after the model of Rocket is actually the skull of an elephant that was killed by a train somewhere or other in India.

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## Roobarb

A model showing how coal trucks were loaded onto ferries to cross some river somewhere.




There were various other models around too






Scale seemed to be an issue on some exhibits

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## Roobarb

The sign on this one describes the chairs as being luxury, magnificent and in vogue for a long time for official use.



I'm not so sure that I would describe them as either luxury or magnificent, but clearly the officials whose bottoms resided on them thought so and that's the main thing.


This wasn't running.  Took up a good lot of space though so no need to find other stuff to put here instead.



It's an odd mixture of bric-a-brac in here, from station furniture to signals.  There's a smattering of exhibits that may have once worked but don't any more, but the place is worth a wander through.

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## Roobarb

Finally, the highlight of the trip for Roobarb minor.  The ride on the Toy Train.




Sitting at the platform




Train is beginning to fill up.  Excitement mounting.




No, you lot are too late, we're full.

No room on the roof either.

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## Roobarb

Whistle blows and we're off...!




Folks waving as we chug past






Going past the Garratt, tunnel coming up next

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## Roobarb

Coming out of the tunnel.  Someone usefully giving a hand signal to show we are turning left.



The train clanks around the museum site in a big anticlockwise loop before arriving back at the platform that you left from.  It takes a few minutes I suppose.


Past the Himalayan mountain railway train




Farewell to the high-hemline Lumley



And with that we were done for the day.  The kids had had a good scamper around and were ready to head home.


There are a few snack places in the car park if you are feeling a bit peckish.  



As mentioned at the outset, if any of you do find yourselves at a lose end in Delhi then this is a great place to escape to for a few hours.

Hope you enjoyed the tour

Roobarb

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## Bobcock

> Impressive, but the boat lift is not thinking really big, so how about this one:
> 
> The problem was this: How to get your steelworkers from the side of the river where they lived to the other side of the river where they worked without then having to make a four mile commute via the nearest bridge. Two things to bear in mind are that the bridge needs to allow large ships underneath and the river is very tidal which means that running ferries is not practical.
> 
> I give you the Newport Transporter Bridge, South Wales. Built in 1906, ran for 80 years before being closed for refurbishment.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Best thing in Newport as well....

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## Bobcock

I also visited the train museum in Delhi about 25 years ago.

I can't wait to get back to the UK and into my house (which I haven't entered for over 8 years) to retrieve all the negatives of those old travelling days and scan them.

Do they still have the skull of the elephant that they ran down with a hulking big train one time?

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## Roobarb

> I also visited the train museum in Delhi about 25 years ago.
> 
> I can't wait to get back to the UK and into my house (which I haven't entered for over 8 years) to retrieve all the negatives of those old travelling days and scan them.
> 
> Do they still have the skull of the elephant that they ran down with a hulking big train one time?


Yup Bobcock, it's still in there.  

I get the feeling that they found enough stuff to vaguely fill the place and then, other than sending a dusting wallah in every now and again, have left it to its own devices.  Shame really as India has to be littered with all sorts of railway things to exhibit.  

The elephant skull is pretty cool though, simply because it's quite an odd thing to keep and proudly display.  

_"Look here, our magnificent trains are so jolly good we can even use them to kill the mighty elephant.  If you are disbelieving of this then here's one we did earlier". _ 

It's a bit unexpected, but that applies to many things in India (a sentiment the elephant may also have agreed with momentarily before his fate was sealed). 

If you do ever dig out the negatives of this place then please do bung 'em up for all to see.

Cheers

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## pasko

Train Spotting is back!!!

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## dutara

Nice work, Roo.  

I spent a few years in the 1970s-80s knocking around India.  A lot of time on the trains.  The 24+ hour trips would get on the nerves, but when the train had a long stop Id walk around the entire length of the train and marvel at the rolling museum aspect of the journey.  The rides on the narrow-gauge lines that run through central part of the country, twisting and turning and, along with the landscape, were right out of the old Westerns.  
  My favorite thing was to lean out of the door and take in the sights.  Those trains seem to have their own space-time continuum, speeding past villages that seemed to be hundreds of years in the past.  To bring this into the other Trainspotting connotation, I used to have _special bidis_ made, quite nice amusement enhancer for those trips.
  Later in the 1980s moved to San Francisco USA.  The old fellow who managed to apartment house I lived in was born in 1891, was a hard-core train buff, his apartment chockers with train stuff.  He loved hearing my stories about Indian trains.  If you ever find yourself in northern California look into seeing what is left of the old _Iron Horse_ trains from the 19th century.  Its both ironic and sad that once these things were commonplace, now whatever junk is left is worthy of a museum.  Theres a few lines that still have operable locomotives, as tourist attractions; these sometimes show up in movies.

  As for reviewing Indian food, especially in Delhi, a good start would be to stick to the meat-and-bread meals.  Seek the Sikhs, those are their specialties.  I havent been there since 81, but I recall having a series of favorite hole-in-the-wall places in the Connaught area, for tikkas, tandooris, etc.

  BTW, if youre looking for a short trip, used to be a train that left Delhi around 2pm and would arrive in Varanasi the next day at dawn, called the Kashi-Vishwanath Express.  Coming back it has the same schedule.  Must have done that run more than a dozen times, the miraculous thing was it was always on time (_on time_ in India means within 2 hours of the schedule  :Smile: ).

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## TongueThaied

> It was the British that brought Railways to Africa,Australia and India,and Indians built and ran the first railway line from Nairobi Kenya to Uganda.


Well, yeah, you Brits gave the world trains, but us Yanks supplied the nukes.  Now which one gives the most bang for the buck?

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## Davis Knowlton

^No wonder you've only posted three times in a year.

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## Davis Knowlton

> Nice work, Roo.  
> 
> I spent a few years in the 1970s-80s knocking around India.  A lot of time on the trains.  The 24+ hour trips would get on the nerves, but when the train had a long stop Id walk around the entire length of the train and marvel at the rolling museum aspect of the journey.  The rides on the narrow-gauge lines that run through central part of the country, twisting and turning and, along with the landscape, were right out of the old Westerns.  
>   My favorite thing was to lean out of the door and take in the sights.  Those trains seem to have their own space-time continuum, speeding past villages that seemed to be hundreds of years in the past.  To bring this into the other Trainspotting connotation, I used to have _special bidis_ made, quite nice amusement enhancer for those trips.
>   Later in the 1980s moved to San Francisco USA.  The old fellow who managed to apartment house I lived in was born in 1891, was a hard-core train buff, his apartment chockers with train stuff.  He loved hearing my stories about Indian trains.  If you ever find yourself in northern California look into seeing what is left of the old _Iron Horse_ trains from the 19th century.  Its both ironic and sad that once these things were commonplace, now whatever junk is left is worthy of a museum.  Theres a few lines that still have operable locomotives, as tourist attractions; these sometimes show up in movies.
> 
>   As for reviewing Indian food, especially in Delhi, a good start would be to stick to the meat-and-bread meals.  Seek the Sikhs, those are their specialties.  I havent been there since 81, but I recall having a series of favorite hole-in-the-wall places in the Connaught area, for tikkas, tandooris, etc.
> 
>   BTW, if youre looking for a short trip, used to be a train that left Delhi around 2pm and would arrive in Varanasi the next day at dawn, called the Kashi-Vishwanath Express.  Coming back it has the same schedule.  Must have done that run more than a dozen times, the miraculous thing was it was always on time (_on time_ in India means within 2 hours of the schedule ).


Yep. Trains were the way to go. I was there around the same time, 83-86, and after months of driving, would always look forward to a train trip out of town. In 77, while living in Sri Lanka, I took the train from Colombo all the way to Madras - with a brief ferry trip across the straits. Spent much of the trip riding up top - I looked just like all my fellow travelers by the time we made Madras.

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## slackula

> Well, yeah, you Brits gave the world trains, but us Yanks supplied the nukes. Now which one gives the most bang for the buck?

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## wasabi

Heroin humour,that is what that movie Trainspotting was about.

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## Roobarb

> Heroin humour,that is what that movie Trainspotting was about.


Having alluded to the film earlier I have to admit that I have never actually seen it...  




> Originally Posted by wasabi
> 
> 
> It was the British that brought Railways to Africa,Australia and India,and Indians built and ran the first railway line from Nairobi Kenya to Uganda.
> 
> 
> Well, yeah, you Brits gave the world trains, but us Yanks supplied the nukes.  Now which one gives the most bang for the buck?


... happily though, having the knowledge to understand the relevance of one subject to another is clearly not a prerequisite for posting on TD  :Smile:

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## Loombucket

Great thread Roobarb! Nice photos also. The modern diesel engine has none of the charm, or smell, of the old steam engine. Unfortunately, it takes, on average, over four years of hard graft to recover an old wreck of an engine and turn it back into a thing of beauty. All the major steam works have disappeared and most restorations are done by volunteer enthusiasts, like myself.

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## Mid

> most restorations are done by volunteer enthusiasts, like myself.


so how's about a thread w/- pic's ?  :Smile:

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## slackula

> Heroin humour,that is what that movie Trainspotting was about.


If you watched Trainspotting and your take away was that it was about heroin humour then you really missed the point.




> All the major steam works have disappeared and most restorations are done by volunteer enthusiasts, like myself.





> so how's about a thread w/- pic's ?


Oh hell yes! 

C'mon Loombucket, you can't throw out a juicy tidbit like that and not give us a thread about it, or a least a link to some of the stuff you have worked on.

Anybody who volunteers to try to stop these magnificent machines from reverting to dust deserves kudos.  :Smile:

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## Loombucket

> All the major steam works have disappeared and most restorations are done by volunteer enthusiasts, like myself.





> so how's about a thread w/- pic's ?


Oh hell yes! 

C'mon Loombucket, you can't throw out a juicy tidbit like that and not give us a thread about it, or a least a link to some of the stuff you have worked on.

Anybody who volunteers to try to stop these magnificent machines from reverting to dust deserves kudos.  :Smile: [/quote]

Thanks! I will take that as a sign of enthusiasm and attempt to do something about it.

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## Roobarb

Hello Loombucket,

To echo Mid and QC's exhortations, please do get a thread together about restoring steam engines.  For an office-bound pencil-pusher like me I can only live my dreams of oily, spanner wielding prowess through the experiences of others.  Putting the chain back on my bicycle is about as oil stained and technical as I ever seem to get.

That aside, your threads are absolute classics.  27,000 viewers tuned in to watch you build a wall.  Twenty Seven Thousand...!  You could make watching paint dry interesting (which I guess is a part of steam engine restoration so there's a vote of confidence in that bit).

Go for it man.  Cacoethes scribendi and all that...!

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## bangkokbonecollector

> Originally Posted by Roobarb
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In fairness though things are not a lot better in my home country
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Northern line, 10 stop trip, middle of summer............worse then a walk through Bangkok in April.

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## upupandaway

Fascinating stuff

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