Much has been said and written about the Yal Devi lately. As a regular traveller on this train in bygone days, I feel I should share my experiences with readers.
The Yal Devi was a very comfortable train. You got into the Utthara Devi after lunch and you reached Jaffna in time for dinner. The [...]
Raring to go but not quite so
How many years more will it take for the railway museum, which houses a valuable piece of our history, to be complete?
After several false starts, finally, Sri Lanka officially has a railway museum. That is the good news. The bad news is that though it was officially declared open [...]
A transit shelter to house stranded passengers in the city of Colombo at night is a timely act of the Government. A Colombo University survey has revealed that over 100 passengers get stranded daily in Colombo at night.
Transport Minister Dallas Alahapperuma who laid the foundation stone for the first transit centre, named Colombagedera, quite rightly [...]
It was the late evening of Saturday the 14th, December. I was a passenger in the Colombo bound intercity train from Nanu Oya. When it reached Ihalakotte, a small station situated between Kadugannawa and Kadigamuwa, the train was stopped by the control room to give way to a Kandy bound train, which should have reached [...]
I appreciate what the Transport Minister is doing for the betterment of the Government transport services such as the Railway and CTB.
I have noticed how many trains and buses are introduced to the system to uplift the service levels.
Around 3,000 employees travel by a train during office hours. So, delaying a train by half and [...]
Much time and money is being devoted by the media to the subject of mishaps occurring at railway crossings.
Why are there barriers or warnings signs on the approach to railway lines? It is because the railway has priority over all other forms of traffic. A railway engine pulls hundreds of tons at speed and requires [...]
The causes which led to the decline of the railway are legion, running back to 1970 May. Enumerating the causes would run into hundreds of pages. To put it briefly the problem is mainly due to the railways being modelled on the British system, having been introduced by the Britishers when the island was a [...]
I wanted to take my family by train to Kandy last year in December, but was told when I arrived at the station that all tickets had been sold out.
So, this year, I asked a travel agent to get me the tickets and was informed by them that they would have to send a person [...]
