The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) connects the town of Mettupalayam with the hill station of Udagamandalam, in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India. Both towns are in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is the only rack railway in India, and uses the Abt system.
The Nilgiri Mountain railway is one of the oldest mountain railways in India. Under consideration since 1845, the line was finally opened by the British in 1899, and was initially operated by the Madras Railway Company. The railway is one of the few in the world dependent on steam locomotives.[citation needed]
The Palghat division of the Indian Railways, which operates the NMR, incurs an annual shortfall of Rs 4 crores, (~1 million USD). During the Centenary celebrations of Nilgiri Mountain Railway in 1999 Railway Minister Nitish Kumar announced that the line would soon be electrified.
In July 2005, UNESCO added the NMR as an extension to the World Heritage Site of Darjeeling Himalayan Railway[1] after it satisfied the necessary criteria, thus forcing abandonment of modernisation plans.
The NMR track is Template:1m gauge and the railway is isolated from other narrow gauge lines.
Below Coonoor the line uses the rack and pinion system to climb the steep gradient. On the rack section trains are operated by steam rack locomotives manufactured by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works of Winterthur in Switzerland, which are always marshalled at the downhill (Mettupalayam) end of the train.
The average gradient in this rack section is 1 in 24.5, with a maximum of 1 in 12.
As of 2007, there is one train a day over the rack section, starting from Mettupalayam at 7.10 AM reaches Ooty at noon. Return train starts from Mettupalayam at 3 PM and reaching Ooty at 6.35 PM. The train is scheduled both ways connecting it to the Nilgiri Express (Mettupplalayam-Chennai) whose timings are :
Arrival (from Chennai) : 5.30 AM approx
Departure (to Chennai) : 7.30 PM
Eventhough the NMR stations have networked computerised ticketing systems for onward journeys, it still issues old style manual tickets for the Ooty-Mettupalayam journey to preserve the World Heritage Site status of the railway. It is advisable to book tickets for NMR in advance especially during peak season. Ticket booking is similar to other conventional trains and can be done via official website also.
Station code : UAM
Official name of the train: Udagamandalam-Mettupalayam Passenger
Fare - 1st class : Rs. 135
2nd class : Rs. 25
Between Coonoor and Udagamandalam the train is operated by a YDM4 diesel locomotive using conventional rail adhesion principles. On this section the locomotive is always at the Coonoor end of the train as although the line is not steep enough to need a rack rail the ruling gradient out of Coonoor is still very steep at 1 in 25.
Between Coonoor and Udagamandalam (in 2005) there are four daily trains each way.
The diesel locomotives can only operate on the upper section. The steam locomotives can be used either with or without the rack section when required.
The majority of repairs to the locomotives are carried out at Coonoor shed but many of the steam locomotives have been rebuilt at the Golden Rock Workshops. Carriages are repaired at Mettupalayam but, like the locomotives, are taken to one of the big railway workshops for major work.
The train covers a distance of 46 km (28 miles), travels through 208 curves, 16 tunnels, and 250 bridges. The uphill journey takes around 290 minutes and the downhill journey 215 minutes.
