Metamorphosis of a Train-Tea Garden Fast Passenger/Express to Ernakulam Karaikal Express

As a regular on long distance train in Indian Railways for over 40 years, I have many interesting memories of various trains and train journeys. I am starting with the metamorphosis of a train.

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was a very fast passenger train from Cochin Harbour Terminus to Mettupalaiyam with a number 565. Since it was quite fast, it was called a fast passenger although there is no such class of fare in Indian Railways even now. Let us not forget that even now there are a few passenger trains which go by the reference fast passenger and charge just the passenger fares.

I had travelled to Howrah by this train by a through coach which got detached from this train to be connected to No. 28 Mangalore-Madras Centre West Coast Express which in turn detaches the coach at Basin Bridge to be connected to Number 4 Madras-Howrah Mail! With a reserved berth from Trichur to Howrah, the second class travel cost me a princely sum of INR 81 in 1980!

Since most of the passengers would be through passengers, the coach turns out behave like a single large family by the time you reach Madras where you are to spend about 7 hours before being connected to the Madras-Howrah Mail.

I have travelled by this train to Mettupalaiyam too. It is a connection train to the first trip of the Mettupalaiyam-Ooty train. Since iwas going to Nilgiri District, it got a fancy name of Tea Garden Fast Passenger.

Later this train became Cochin Harbour Terminus-Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) Junction Express. In the return direction, this was the train carrying flowers in large quantities to Ernakulam and one km radius of Ernakulam Town Railway Station used to get a pleasant smell when flowers were getting unloaded there. The train number was 6865/6866 (and subsequently 16865/16866) and when by the popular name Flower Express over and above what is recovered from the past, Tea Garden Express. Subsequently trains to Cochin Harbour Terminus were discontinued and all trains to Ernakulam terminated or started from Ernakulam Junction. After introduction of the Trivandrum-Ernakulam Vanchinad Express, one could travel with a through ticket from Trivandum since the timing was such that the Tea Garden Express left Ernakulam Junction about 10 minutes after the arrival of Vanchinad Express. In fact if Vanchinad Express was late by a few minutes, Tea Garden used to wait for it.

On completion of the gauge conversion of the Trichy-Nagore sector, the train got extended to Nagore. This was synchronous with the discontinuance of Quilon-Nagore Express in the Meter Gauge line. On completion of the Nagore-Karaikal section, it got extended to Kariakal. Since it was covering the major pilgrim centres of three of the largest religions in India, the originally short train became one of the longest in India with 24 bogies. Since the Chennai Egmore-Karaikudi Kamban Express also got extended to Nagore (of course, skipping Karaikudi altogether), rake sharing arrangement between the two trains started with Chennai Egmore controlling the train. Thus the number also changed. Now, the Ernakulam-Karaikal Express runs with a number 16188 and 16187 in return direction. Since the production of first class compartments have been discontinued, it lost it in the rake formation in lieu of an AC 3 Tier Coach. Since there is just one rain connecting Ernakulam (for that matter Kerala itself) to Karaikal/Tirunallaru, Nagore, Nagappattanam/Velankanni, it so over crowded and the current passenger load indicates the need for two more trains, one from Mangalore and another from Kollam or Trivandrum or Kochuveli both terminating at Velankanni rather than Karaikal
Anand. G., The Solutions Centre, 37/1013, UNIDEC House, Fatima Church Road, Elamkulam, Cochin-682 020. Ph: 0484-4024186/9349263803