It was by a quirk of circumstance that my friend and batch mate AGA and I found ourselves in the office of Mr. Vaithialingam at Railway Headquarters one day about the end of June 1960. This amiable, gentle person was the Chief Engineer, Way and Works, Sri Lanka Railways.
Year after year for several years he [...]
Never a day passes without some incident in the railways – derailments, delays, strikes, etc. To get to the root cause, it is best to go back to the era of the legendary B. D. Rampala and before, when the trains ran to time and derailments, accidents were very very rare.
The derailments are mainly due [...]
Running on a similar track to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) expansion project, the Sri Lanka Railways Department is making plans to construct an Internal Container Terminal (ICT) close to the commercial hub of Sri Lanka for the first time in the country’s history.
“We have already chosen Veyangoda, Ratmalana or Sapugaskanda to go ahead [...]
Update 2: The Centenary Celebration is scheduled to be hold on 9th of march 2009 at 9.30 AM, this article has been updated with the new dates
Update: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the events planned for tomorrow has been postponed, the general public will be updated with the new dates shortly!
The construction of the Sri Lanka Railways [...]
The four day long work to rule campaigned by the Locomotive Operating Engineers Union (LOEU) is to further hamper the railway service in the country unless the four employees that were sacked following the Ganemulla railway tragedy two months ago are reinstated , Chief Secretary, LOEU, Mahinda Karunaratne said.
Taking into consideration the Railway Department’s decision [...]
A railway union is alleging that certain officials at the Railways Department are trying to defraud 4,55,332 rupees which had been approved for the repair of a train engine. The department had handed over the engine to Dimo Limited for repairs on 15 October 2007 and the company had estimated 4,55,332 rupees for the job.
Even [...]
Reserve a first-class seat in the Podi Menike train’s observation car and sit back to marvel at mountains, forests… and landslides, says Peter MacNeil
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but for independent travellers on the Indian sub-continent, foresight is even better. Start taking anti-malaria tablets weeks before you leave. Once on the move, phone ahead to [...]
As we boarded the packed train in Colombo, it was late afternoon, and it was obvious that a seat was going to be a privilege. However, we found a reserved coach for service personnel and two vacant seats of wooden slats, and no windows. The seats faced forward, a fact that presented us with severe [...]
