In the first Semis at Kingsmead, Durban, it rained and Raina reined. It was overcast at the start and match was disrupted after 2.5 overs at which time CSK were 15 without loss with Murali Vijay on 11. The match was reduced to 17 overs a side. MEK Hussey, left at 3.5 when score was 11; Vijay was out for well made 41 off 32 when score was 100(2) off 11.5. Raina remained unbeaten on 94 off 48 with 5 hits to the boundary and six over it.
Now they await the winner of the match at Centurion where South Australian Redbacks play Eastern Cape Warriors, the local side. Redbacks have not lost a single game thus far. Warriors have Botha, Juan Theron and Justin Kreusch bowling well and the caption Davie Jacobs making runs. They also have Ashwell Prince and Boucher. Redbacks are riding a crust with Klinger, Putland, Christian, Tait all performing well. It remains to be seen whether Makhaya Ntini and leftie Lonwabo Tsotsobe would threaten as much Tait & Co.
RCB had a lucky route to Semis with only two wins. A team like Victorian Bush rangers were out of the race though they had three wins. On a day when Raina was at his violent best, all bowlers including Kumble were hit all over the park. Rain had threatened Kumble already as the funny rule was that in case of no result, the team that finished higher on its Group points table will progress to the final i.e., CSK – had there been a no result.
As often said, the famous Kumble’s scowl - the characteristic distraught face with sullen contraction of eye brows was to the fore. The warrior went down fighting. He was let down badly by a terrible mishap of Dale Steyn running to take the spiraled mishit of Hussey and made a terrible landing. Thus one bowler less, he had to manage. Their fielding was also awful. Manish Pandey misjudged one at deep midwicket, when Raina was on 18 – perhaps had moved in too much on his own.
In the end the great knock of Raina ensured drubbing of RCB by 52 runs. Pandey made 52 off 44. Kallis was off due to an injury and the replacement; the highly priced White disappointed with both bat and ball. The good opening spell of Morkel also sealed the fate.
Now CSK has a fair chance of lifting the cup. Namma CSKku periya whistle adingo !
Regards – Sampathkumar S
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
The role of ANCHOR (in a Ship - illustrated)
The caption sure would mean different things to different people.
NZ High Commissioner to India has apologized to CM Sheila Dikshit for the racist remarks made by an anchor (Paul Henry) in a talk show. There are anchors for TV / Radio show and for the various entertainment programmes who present the show interlaced with glamour. Star News made an initiative to find out budding talents who aspire to become anchors. It was a multistage elimination process to select Star Anchor from amongst thousands of aspirants. The first two selected were awarded Ford Figo car and opportunity to become anchor in Star News.
********************************************************************************
The news of Greenpeace activists attaching a survival pod to the anchor chain of Stena Carron off Bressay prompted me to write something on anchor. Purely an attempt by a non-technical person, not a sea-farer to write something solely based on some articles collated and things seen from a distance.
the survival pod can be seen here.
greenpeace activist inside the pod
The life near Marine beach has influenced me in many ways – there are days when we sat in beach, enjoyed the sea breeze, discussed everything under the sun. The huge vessels that float on the Bay of Bengal, the fishing trawlers, catamarans all captivated us. One would wonder about the movement of those gigantic floating objects that carry passengers, cargo, oil, containers and more. Though from the sands one can hardly make out the different types or for that matter cargo that was being carried.
Probably it was the fascination for sea and venturing into it would have made people sail without fathoming the depth, the distance or the sustenance of the equipment that they depended on. Men would certainly have ventured into the sea much before the construction of modern day boats and ships. Ships and boats would have developed alongside mankind. We have read of wars where the power at sea had a major role to play. Chozha and Kalinga kings went to Ceylon, Burma and beyond and established their kingdoms over there. In tamil literature there are proverbs and adages of venturing across the sea for gaining riches. Have often wondered why the vessels would be stopped as though the ship contains advanced controls and automation, would not have brakes. When it is required to be held at a place from drifting astray, anchors are used. Here is an amateur attempt to write something on anchor !!
The purpose of anchoring is to secure the vessel and stop drifting due to the actions of wind, wave, tide and currents. A vessel closer to land is secured to a dock, piling, mooring buoy etc.,
ship anchored mid sea - illustration.
vessel tied at the port
Anchor is not a machine or equipment. For those who have absolutely no idea, an anchor is a heavy object, often of metal, used to attach the ship to the bottom of body of water at a specific point to keep the ship from drifting (moving). To put it crudely, anchor is like a large rock. When one end of a rope from the boat is tied to the dead weight, it is anchored. But this may not work when there are strong winds and tides act on the boat. A permanent anchor is often termed mooring. The anchor is attached by chain, cable, mooring line. The hole in the vessel’s hull through which the rode passes is called ‘hawsepipe’ as the thick mooring lines are known as hawsers.
Anchors are dropped into sea in the sea bed, it contains a chain (ropes in case of smaller boats) – the extra length would allow movement depending on weather conditions. Of course nothing is as simple as they are written. Legends are agog with stories that in olden days tying people to anchor and throwing them into sea was one method of execution (Recall Kamal being thrown into the sea in the opening scene of Dasavatharam). It is believed that the stones shaped like letter T in Tutankhamen’s tomb could be anchors. Over thousands of years, this developed into rudimentary anchor, and its design improved gradually. It is also a fact that the design of anchor has not changed much over the years.
anchor of Lexa Maersk(courtesy : http://www.menkent.dk/)
The role of anchor can be simply explained by the principle of resistance to the movement force of the vessel. The primary ways of achieving this are the sheer mass and by hooking to the sea bed. Permanent moorings use large masses resting on the seabed. For temporary anchors, this is not practical. These anchors are stored on board and are dropped whenever necessary. The metal flukes on them hook on to the rocks in the bottom or bury themselves in soft bottoms.
On an anchoring run, the ship would lay the anchor together with a length of its iron cables on the seabed. Besides the weight of the anchor, the weight of the huge iron cables connected to the anchor also secure the ship. As extra length of chain is always allowed, the ship would be held to a circular area, the radius of which would be determined by the length of the cable released.
anchor of Lexa Maersk(courtesy : http://www.menkent.dk/)
For an anchor to be effective, the anchor should be strong enough to withstand the strains and rode should be of necessary length. To be effective, the anchors should have sufficient weight for initial penetration, should bury deeply when subjected to horizontal pull, once buried should offer resistance to movement in the direction of pull, should remain rotationally stable even when pulled through the seabed and should break out of the ground easily when pulled upwards.
When the currents are high, the ship could drag the anchor or sever it at some weak link. A ship in water is subjected to wind and water forces and if restrained, it has to oppose these forces. The ship can maintain its position by steaming into the wind or current using energy. According to the laws of physics, the primary purpose of an anchor is not to hold the ship, but to hold one end of the chain on the seabed. Given a chain long enough not to drag, any anchor at its end is entirely superfluous. The anchor occupies a smaller stowage space than the length of chain that it replaces: that is its engineering advantage over chain. As chain length is dropped on the sea bed and as the ship moves, a curve is formed, this is known as catenary.
A stiffly anchored vessel without scope for movement would be battered to pieces by wave action. This is what happens to most vessels that run aground.
In my experience in Kakinada, a claim of a fishing trawler reportedly was reported to have run aground in Hope island off Kakinada. I ventured into the sea in another fishing boat, reached the island and on the other side could see the fishing boat crouched on the sand. The salvage efforts were simple – to remove the sand from the bottom of the boat manually (sounds simple but very difficult to remove wet sand embedded under the weight of the boat against rough waves) dig on the sides, put wooden logs, pull it back to the sea by ropes tethered to another fishing boat, also push the boat manually. They would break and dismantle the engine from its cabin bed first. This was done more to lighten the boat ; pulling a bare hull from sand to water is relatively easier. Unfortunately, in this instance, nothing worked. In a couple of days, all that remained were some planks and the huge fishing trawler had vanished. If none of us had seen it earlier, even the entire episode of running ground and then reduced to planks would have remained a story and we would have doubted the innocent fisherman of creating a story after intentionally breaking the boat for a TL claim.
As the boat stood aground, one side of it is battered by heavy waves and wind and the wooden structure slowly started giving way. In a few hours time, the remnants were only few planks. This could happen to a Ship as well though it is considered structurally much stronger and made of steel rather than wood.
As against a vessel that has run aground and immobilized, the anchor would allow movements of ship in three dimensions of yaw, pitch, roll and drift within design limits. ‘Aweigh’ is an important terminology describing the hanging anchor – not resting on the bottom. An anchor would be on aweigh when it is being hauled up from the bottom and is to be stored.
There are many more principles, types, angle of attack, scope, terminology – not all comprehensible to learners like us. Generally, the anchor and chain require little maintenance. Obviously such heavy weight of anchor and its chain cannot be manually hauled or dropped, there is something known as windlass which consists of cable lifter, mooring drum and warp which rotate and do the anchoring process.
Coming to the opening para, Stena Carron is a specialized vessel build by Samsung designed for exploration, batch drilling, capable of operating in depth of 10000ft of water. It has huge storage capacity of oil, has 6 – 7.4 MW diesel gensets, 6 sets of variable speed propellers, helicopter deck and accommodation of cabins, office, hospital, gym etc., Activists of Greenpeace trying to stop deepwater drilling taking place have attached a survival pod to the anchor chain, providing the campaigners a safe and comfortable haven from which to prolong their protest. Thus an anchor meant to prevent drifting is stopping it from doing its intended activity.
Hope this provided some basic inputs on anchor
Regards – Sampathkumar S
PS : The top two Star Anchor winners were : Akshay Shukla and Meenakshi Kandwal and the photo at the start of this article is that of Ms Kandwal
NZ High Commissioner to India has apologized to CM Sheila Dikshit for the racist remarks made by an anchor (Paul Henry) in a talk show. There are anchors for TV / Radio show and for the various entertainment programmes who present the show interlaced with glamour. Star News made an initiative to find out budding talents who aspire to become anchors. It was a multistage elimination process to select Star Anchor from amongst thousands of aspirants. The first two selected were awarded Ford Figo car and opportunity to become anchor in Star News.
********************************************************************************
The news of Greenpeace activists attaching a survival pod to the anchor chain of Stena Carron off Bressay prompted me to write something on anchor. Purely an attempt by a non-technical person, not a sea-farer to write something solely based on some articles collated and things seen from a distance.
The life near Marine beach has influenced me in many ways – there are days when we sat in beach, enjoyed the sea breeze, discussed everything under the sun. The huge vessels that float on the Bay of Bengal, the fishing trawlers, catamarans all captivated us. One would wonder about the movement of those gigantic floating objects that carry passengers, cargo, oil, containers and more. Though from the sands one can hardly make out the different types or for that matter cargo that was being carried.
Probably it was the fascination for sea and venturing into it would have made people sail without fathoming the depth, the distance or the sustenance of the equipment that they depended on. Men would certainly have ventured into the sea much before the construction of modern day boats and ships. Ships and boats would have developed alongside mankind. We have read of wars where the power at sea had a major role to play. Chozha and Kalinga kings went to Ceylon, Burma and beyond and established their kingdoms over there. In tamil literature there are proverbs and adages of venturing across the sea for gaining riches. Have often wondered why the vessels would be stopped as though the ship contains advanced controls and automation, would not have brakes. When it is required to be held at a place from drifting astray, anchors are used. Here is an amateur attempt to write something on anchor !!
The purpose of anchoring is to secure the vessel and stop drifting due to the actions of wind, wave, tide and currents. A vessel closer to land is secured to a dock, piling, mooring buoy etc.,
Anchor is not a machine or equipment. For those who have absolutely no idea, an anchor is a heavy object, often of metal, used to attach the ship to the bottom of body of water at a specific point to keep the ship from drifting (moving). To put it crudely, anchor is like a large rock. When one end of a rope from the boat is tied to the dead weight, it is anchored. But this may not work when there are strong winds and tides act on the boat. A permanent anchor is often termed mooring. The anchor is attached by chain, cable, mooring line. The hole in the vessel’s hull through which the rode passes is called ‘hawsepipe’ as the thick mooring lines are known as hawsers.
Anchors are dropped into sea in the sea bed, it contains a chain (ropes in case of smaller boats) – the extra length would allow movement depending on weather conditions. Of course nothing is as simple as they are written. Legends are agog with stories that in olden days tying people to anchor and throwing them into sea was one method of execution (Recall Kamal being thrown into the sea in the opening scene of Dasavatharam). It is believed that the stones shaped like letter T in Tutankhamen’s tomb could be anchors. Over thousands of years, this developed into rudimentary anchor, and its design improved gradually. It is also a fact that the design of anchor has not changed much over the years.
The role of anchor can be simply explained by the principle of resistance to the movement force of the vessel. The primary ways of achieving this are the sheer mass and by hooking to the sea bed. Permanent moorings use large masses resting on the seabed. For temporary anchors, this is not practical. These anchors are stored on board and are dropped whenever necessary. The metal flukes on them hook on to the rocks in the bottom or bury themselves in soft bottoms.
On an anchoring run, the ship would lay the anchor together with a length of its iron cables on the seabed. Besides the weight of the anchor, the weight of the huge iron cables connected to the anchor also secure the ship. As extra length of chain is always allowed, the ship would be held to a circular area, the radius of which would be determined by the length of the cable released.
For an anchor to be effective, the anchor should be strong enough to withstand the strains and rode should be of necessary length. To be effective, the anchors should have sufficient weight for initial penetration, should bury deeply when subjected to horizontal pull, once buried should offer resistance to movement in the direction of pull, should remain rotationally stable even when pulled through the seabed and should break out of the ground easily when pulled upwards.
When the currents are high, the ship could drag the anchor or sever it at some weak link. A ship in water is subjected to wind and water forces and if restrained, it has to oppose these forces. The ship can maintain its position by steaming into the wind or current using energy. According to the laws of physics, the primary purpose of an anchor is not to hold the ship, but to hold one end of the chain on the seabed. Given a chain long enough not to drag, any anchor at its end is entirely superfluous. The anchor occupies a smaller stowage space than the length of chain that it replaces: that is its engineering advantage over chain. As chain length is dropped on the sea bed and as the ship moves, a curve is formed, this is known as catenary.
A stiffly anchored vessel without scope for movement would be battered to pieces by wave action. This is what happens to most vessels that run aground.
In my experience in Kakinada, a claim of a fishing trawler reportedly was reported to have run aground in Hope island off Kakinada. I ventured into the sea in another fishing boat, reached the island and on the other side could see the fishing boat crouched on the sand. The salvage efforts were simple – to remove the sand from the bottom of the boat manually (sounds simple but very difficult to remove wet sand embedded under the weight of the boat against rough waves) dig on the sides, put wooden logs, pull it back to the sea by ropes tethered to another fishing boat, also push the boat manually. They would break and dismantle the engine from its cabin bed first. This was done more to lighten the boat ; pulling a bare hull from sand to water is relatively easier. Unfortunately, in this instance, nothing worked. In a couple of days, all that remained were some planks and the huge fishing trawler had vanished. If none of us had seen it earlier, even the entire episode of running ground and then reduced to planks would have remained a story and we would have doubted the innocent fisherman of creating a story after intentionally breaking the boat for a TL claim.
As the boat stood aground, one side of it is battered by heavy waves and wind and the wooden structure slowly started giving way. In a few hours time, the remnants were only few planks. This could happen to a Ship as well though it is considered structurally much stronger and made of steel rather than wood.
As against a vessel that has run aground and immobilized, the anchor would allow movements of ship in three dimensions of yaw, pitch, roll and drift within design limits. ‘Aweigh’ is an important terminology describing the hanging anchor – not resting on the bottom. An anchor would be on aweigh when it is being hauled up from the bottom and is to be stored.
There are many more principles, types, angle of attack, scope, terminology – not all comprehensible to learners like us. Generally, the anchor and chain require little maintenance. Obviously such heavy weight of anchor and its chain cannot be manually hauled or dropped, there is something known as windlass which consists of cable lifter, mooring drum and warp which rotate and do the anchoring process.
Coming to the opening para, Stena Carron is a specialized vessel build by Samsung designed for exploration, batch drilling, capable of operating in depth of 10000ft of water. It has huge storage capacity of oil, has 6 – 7.4 MW diesel gensets, 6 sets of variable speed propellers, helicopter deck and accommodation of cabins, office, hospital, gym etc., Activists of Greenpeace trying to stop deepwater drilling taking place have attached a survival pod to the anchor chain, providing the campaigners a safe and comfortable haven from which to prolong their protest. Thus an anchor meant to prevent drifting is stopping it from doing its intended activity.
Hope this provided some basic inputs on anchor
Regards – Sampathkumar S
PS : The top two Star Anchor winners were : Akshay Shukla and Meenakshi Kandwal and the photo at the start of this article is that of Ms Kandwal
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Will CSK make the cut ? Chennaikku visil podanama ? Pujara - Who ??
Some update from South Africa and something on a 22 year old consistent batsman who has made news back home. Cheteswar Arvind Pujara born in Jan 25th 1988 could not have been ignored after prolific scores in domestic and in tours. In 2006 U19 WC, he was the highest scorer with 349. He is touted to be a classical player with good technique.
At South Africa the 2010 Champions League is entering a crucial phase after some absorbing tussles. This featured 10 teams – 3 from India, 2 each from Australia and Southafrica and 1 each from Sri Lanka, West Indies and Newzealand. The last 2 matches of the preliminary round is on today, which will determine the entrant to Semi from Group A where Chennai Super Kings have a stake.
This is a cash rich statement with the total prize money @ US $ 6 million (27 crores !) ; the winner gets 2.5 M$ and runner up gets 1.3M$. The winner, runner and the third team from the previous version of IPL (CSK, MI & RCB) were in fray. In a complex situation some players who had helped their team qualify for the tournament were part of another team also. The rule in such a scenario was that the player can play for his home team and if he plays for any other team, that team must pay the home team US$200000 as compensation. Royal Challengers Bangalore paid compensation for Jacques Kallis, Cameron White and Ross Taylor.
In Y day match RCB won convincingly thanks to good knocks by Manoj Pandey and Virat Kohli after good bowling performances of 2/23 by Vinay Kumar and 1/13 by Kumble. They have qualified for the semi stage though they won only two of their matches. South Australia is the other qualifier from Group B. Group A is wide open with the last match involving CSK Vs Warriors and Central Dist playing Wayamba in a match of no significance.
Warriors have won all their games thus far. If they beat CSK, they would qualify without using a calculator. So also would Victoria. But if they lose, they need to ensure that they do so by a small margin (approx less than 30 runs or more than 16.3 overs) to maintain a higher NRR than Victoria.
CSK are in a must win situation ; need to beat Warriors – CSK has the best NRR as of now. The Bushrangers have reeled off 3 straight wins but would require Warriors beating CSK for a sure berth. Wayamba and Central Dist have not won a single match and are already out of semis.
Back home, the Team to play the touring Aussie did not contain great surprises. The Squad is : MS Dhoni (capt. & wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Pujara, M Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Sreesanth and Amit Mishra
The punter’s men are already here and would play two tests : 1st at Mohali (Oct 1 – 5); 2nd at Bangalore (Oct 9-13).. They would also play 3 one dayers : Oct 17 – Kochi; Oct 20 Visakhapatnam; Oct 24 at Margao.
The dropping of Yuvraj Singh was on the cards and the heavy scoring Saurashtran Pujara is in the squad. He is unlike to play the Test as the no. 6 spot would go to Suresh Raina after his ton at Lanka. Abimanhyu Mithun has been dropped as Zaheer and Sreesanth make comebacks. Bhaji would continue to be the spinhead backed by Amit Mishra or Ojha.
Pujara has been averaging more than 50 and during the tour to England socred a double. He has 14 first class centuries and is a big hundred player. Surprising he was part of the Kolkatta Knight Riders T20 squad also. At one point of time, he scored two triple centuries in CK Nayudu U22 and then completed one more against Orissa in Ranji becoming the first Saurashtran to make a triple ton. His stand with Ravindra Jadeja was worth 520 becoming the second best partnership in Indian cricket after Vijay Hazare and Gul Mohammed’s 577 for Baroda against Holkar in 1946-47.
How far he goes from here remains to be seen as Test cricket could be a different cup of tea…
Regards – Sampathkumar S
At South Africa the 2010 Champions League is entering a crucial phase after some absorbing tussles. This featured 10 teams – 3 from India, 2 each from Australia and Southafrica and 1 each from Sri Lanka, West Indies and Newzealand. The last 2 matches of the preliminary round is on today, which will determine the entrant to Semi from Group A where Chennai Super Kings have a stake.
This is a cash rich statement with the total prize money @ US $ 6 million (27 crores !) ; the winner gets 2.5 M$ and runner up gets 1.3M$. The winner, runner and the third team from the previous version of IPL (CSK, MI & RCB) were in fray. In a complex situation some players who had helped their team qualify for the tournament were part of another team also. The rule in such a scenario was that the player can play for his home team and if he plays for any other team, that team must pay the home team US$200000 as compensation. Royal Challengers Bangalore paid compensation for Jacques Kallis, Cameron White and Ross Taylor.
In Y day match RCB won convincingly thanks to good knocks by Manoj Pandey and Virat Kohli after good bowling performances of 2/23 by Vinay Kumar and 1/13 by Kumble. They have qualified for the semi stage though they won only two of their matches. South Australia is the other qualifier from Group B. Group A is wide open with the last match involving CSK Vs Warriors and Central Dist playing Wayamba in a match of no significance.
Warriors have won all their games thus far. If they beat CSK, they would qualify without using a calculator. So also would Victoria. But if they lose, they need to ensure that they do so by a small margin (approx less than 30 runs or more than 16.3 overs) to maintain a higher NRR than Victoria.
CSK are in a must win situation ; need to beat Warriors – CSK has the best NRR as of now. The Bushrangers have reeled off 3 straight wins but would require Warriors beating CSK for a sure berth. Wayamba and Central Dist have not won a single match and are already out of semis.
Back home, the Team to play the touring Aussie did not contain great surprises. The Squad is : MS Dhoni (capt. & wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Pujara, M Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Sreesanth and Amit Mishra
The punter’s men are already here and would play two tests : 1st at Mohali (Oct 1 – 5); 2nd at Bangalore (Oct 9-13).. They would also play 3 one dayers : Oct 17 – Kochi; Oct 20 Visakhapatnam; Oct 24 at Margao.
The dropping of Yuvraj Singh was on the cards and the heavy scoring Saurashtran Pujara is in the squad. He is unlike to play the Test as the no. 6 spot would go to Suresh Raina after his ton at Lanka. Abimanhyu Mithun has been dropped as Zaheer and Sreesanth make comebacks. Bhaji would continue to be the spinhead backed by Amit Mishra or Ojha.
Pujara has been averaging more than 50 and during the tour to England socred a double. He has 14 first class centuries and is a big hundred player. Surprising he was part of the Kolkatta Knight Riders T20 squad also. At one point of time, he scored two triple centuries in CK Nayudu U22 and then completed one more against Orissa in Ranji becoming the first Saurashtran to make a triple ton. His stand with Ravindra Jadeja was worth 520 becoming the second best partnership in Indian cricket after Vijay Hazare and Gul Mohammed’s 577 for Baroda against Holkar in 1946-47.
How far he goes from here remains to be seen as Test cricket could be a different cup of tea…
Regards – Sampathkumar S
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A sad end to century old passenger train route - Punalur to Sengottai
A
travel by train is always worth of savouring. A journey was worth its length.
The yester generations cherished travel by talking a lot about the journey and
the experiences during the travel. The
most popular advice perhaps those days was not to sit near the window and look
out when the train chugged out of station – for those days, engines were
powered by coal and fine coal dust would be in the air and could fall in eyes.
As
you traverse along, you look outside to see a bowler starting his run up; your
neck would turn and remain glued till the small ground goes out of sight – you
might never know what happened to that ball – the sight of trees running past
in the opposite direction as the train moves is indeed a great sight. In those
days, whenever the train stopped at any station, people would hurriedly get
down to fill up their containers with water from taps on the platform. The state owned Indian Railways has more
than 64015 km of tracks and 6909 stations, traversing the length and breadth of
the country. Millions use this facility every day. From 1853, the Railways have
come a long way. Going by the measure of distance between the tracks, there are
gauges known as Broad gauge 1676mm; meter gauge 1000 mm as also on few hilly
routes narrow gauge. To a regular traveller, whether it was a travel from
Chennai Central or Chennai Egmore mattered. From Egmore it was to southern
destinations of Tamilnadu and by MG trains – which would not have sidebirths ;
the BG ones would have 8 (3 + 3 + 2 aisle)
On
April 2, 1931 – the meter gauge suburban service of Electrical Motor Units
popularly known as EMU on which great majority of chennaites depend was
inaugurated. 30th June 2004 was a sad day as the EMU units entered their sheds,
not to come out again – replaced by Broad gauge train units. Chennai area was
unique to have electrified MG lines. Understand that the early EMU ran on 1.5KV
DC and were built by Metreo Camell and were wooden bodied. Then came the gauge
conversion project by 1999 there were two MG and one BG line.
Now
comes an end to a 108 year old scenic passenger route – a 51 km track from
Shengottai to Punalur. There was emotional farewell along the route. This route
had started way back in 1873 and took 27 years to complete. The first goods
train ran in 1902 and passengers were on in 1904. It is one of the last gauge
conversion works to be taken up in Tamilnadu. This was a tiny five compartment
train taking over 100 minutes to reach Sengottai near Courtallam in Tamilnadu
from Punalur in Kerala. The passengers would have a breath taking view of Western Ghats as the train passes through tunnels, the
longest one being the one between Bhagawathipuram and Aryankavu. The journey
provided pristine view of wild life sanctuary, captivating waterfalls, teak
plantations, sandalwood plantations and freshwater mangroves.
The
Railway stations from Sengottai were Bhagavathipuram, Aryankavu, Edapalayam,
Kathurthy, Tenmalai, Ottakkal, Edaman and Punalur. Remember that there was a
movie in 1983 by name ‘Bhagavathipuram Railway gate’ starring Thiagarajan
(father of Prashanth) with stirring music by Illayaraja
The
gauge conversion is part of the bigger and longer Virudhunagar – Tenkasi –
Tirunelveli – Tiruchendur project; upon completion it would serve as a shorter
route from Trivandrum
The
suspension bridge at Punalur is one of its kind in South
India – built in 1877 by Albert Henry across kallada river. There is some history (source : IFRCA) that the Maharaja of
Travancore had published of the first train trip on 1st June 1904; but there
were heavy monsoon rains and a portion of the tunnel near Aryankavu had caved
in. Still two steam locomotives were brought to Quilon to run the Punalur
Quilon leg. It is written that these locos were brought from Shengottai to
Tuticorin and transported to Quilon by ship. The first train was flagged by the
Maharaja himself and had 21 salute gun fire. The Quilon Shengottai line was
thrown open on 26/11/1904.
When
it was perceived, it was comparatively easy to construct the rail line from
Kollam to Punalur but five tunnels of different length had to be constructed
between Punlaur and Aryankavu – the kazhuthurutti bridge being the most
noteworthy one.
Already
many meter gauge railway lines have become protected monuments and thing of the
past. The Shengottai Punalur passenger train
joined this sad list on 19th Sept. 2010.
Regards
- S. Sampathkumar
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