It was a trip down memory lane for some of the visitors as they went through old photographs and stamps on locomotives, rail bridges, and our national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Sastry, and Jawaharlal Nehru travelling in trains.

The exhibition was organised by the Waltair Division of East Coast Railway as part of the 59 Railway Week celebrations here on Tuesday and Wednesday.

There were stamps issued on Howrah, Chennai, Mumbai CST, and Old Delhi stations with the imposing vintage buildings, the BNR locomotive, built by the North British Locomotive Company, introduced by BNR in 1913. It was continued till 1921 for heavy shunting and coal traffic.

Later in the evening, cultural programmes were organised by the Personnel Branch of Waltair Division as part of the celebrations.

In his inaugural address, Divisional Railway Manager Anil Kumar listed the achievements of the Division during the financial year 2013-2014.

The Division achieved an originating loading of 52.56 MT, thereby becoming one of the few divisions in the country which had an originating loading in excess of 50 MT. On the passenger front, the originating traffic increased to 33.80 million, which was 3 per cent more than the previous year, and passenger earnings increased to Rs.366.51 crore, which was 17 per cent higher than the previous year. The Division has earned the highest ever total earning of Rs.6,265.58 crore.

Mr. Anil Kumar spoke on the development works initiated at Visakhapatnam railway station like commissioning of escalators on platforms 2 and 3 and 4 and 5, and works on improvement of Gnanapuram-side to ease traffic congestion.

Additional DRM M.L. Meena, ECoRWWO president Anju Anil Kumar, and Divisional Personnel Officer B. Mondal were among those who attended.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Cities>Visakhapatnam / Special Correspondent / Visakhapatnam – April 16th, 2014