Slowing Down The Goyal Express

Slowing Down The Goyal Express

- R. Prasannan

Though they emitted smoke, trains looked good when they were pulled by coal engines. Those adorable Puffing Billys gave way to diesel demons which looked ungainly, but they still did not spoil the landscape.

Then came the electric locomotives with their ugly poles and power transmission lines, all of them spoiling our countryside skylines. One wonders whether R.L. Stevenson would have penned From a Railway Carriage, had he seen today's diesel and electric monsters.

But, our environmentalists, those eco-monsters who have no eye for beauty but only for carbon footprint, say that diesel is dirty and that coal power corrupts the air absolutely. Electric locomotion is cleaner, even if the electricity is generated by burning hydro-carbons, they say. So the poles and power lines are here to stay, though a few whizkids are now finding ways to run trains with no engine. They test-ran the Puri Express so last week, for full 15km from Titlagarh in Odisha. Bravo!