Ooty by train · Ooty by train
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Ooty by train
Ooty by train
The hills are connected to by a nightly train. The Nilagiri Express (Train No. 2671) leaves from Chennai at night, and reaches Mettupalayam (which Indian Rail spells Metupalaiyam), a small town at the foothills of the Nilgiris early the next morning. The train The Nilgiri Mountain Railway leaves Mettupalayam at 7.10 pushed by a small steam powered historic locomotive that is a remnant of Swiss engineered trains imported in the late 1800s. The steam train is much smaller, and can only accommodate a portion of the passengers that disembark at Mettupalayam.You have to book separate ticket for this journey (tickets can be booked through IRCTC(www.irctc.co.in) like any other rail ticket booking.), although many prefer the faster route of taking a cab or a bus from Mettupalayam.
The steam train takes a very scenic route, and the pace of travel will let you take in the beautiful scenery at leisure with stops at stations for the engine to take on water(the journey takes about 5-1/2 hours compared to 2 hours by road). The train uses a rack and pinion system to haul itself up steep slopes, and also to prevent the train from sliding down when stopping. The train is pushed from behind. There are brakesmen at the rear of every carriage who will apply and release hand powered brakes individually for that carriage. The train often travels only at 5 - 10 Kmph, allowing some adventerous passengers to disembark from the train and walk along the train. This practice is not recommended and can be dangerous, besides there is a good chance that the train will speed up, and you will be unable to get back on board.
If you don't have a confirmed ticket of that toy train then you would not get the chance to board in it as railways issue limited say only 30 tickets on the spot at mettupalayam starting at 5:00 AM , and at 1:00 PM at ooty for the full stretch journey from mettupalayam to ooty, and make sure that you have gained nearer position to the ticket window before it opens.
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Ooty Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.