Installing The Nilgiri Mountain Railway’s Rack Line, 1899 PC
An 1898 photo postcard of workers on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway’s bridge. The railway workers standing on the bridge seem to be working on the rack railway track (cog railway). The Nilgiri Mountain Railway’s (NMR) peculiarity is its rack and pinion system or cog-wheel system. This complex set-up was an absolute necessity for the steam train to climb up the steep hills.
The train would have had disastrous results without the help of this system. The special steam locomotive’s pinion gear wheel engages with the tracks’s geared rack while climbing. The rack track usually runs between the two rail tracks. The work on the NMR was completed in 1899. The Nilgiri Railway (also known as Blue Mountain Railway) is probably the only cog railway in India, and is the steepest in Asia.
See post Nilgiri Railway, Ooty Toy Train Locomotive’s Blueprint 1890. Also read A historical account of Nilgiri Mountain Railway, the pride of Blue Mountains.
Did you know – in the days before the NMR, travellers to the hills, especially the memsahibs were hard put to make the back-breaking journey by horse, by bullock carts, or carried in a palanquin.
Past posts – Raja Ravi Varma’s Balamani Actress, 1902 Postcard., Horse-Drawn Tram In Calcutta, 1880 Photo., Broadway Road Bangalore – Old Postcard 1915., Chinese Boats On The Malabar Coast – Old Print 1746.
