Incredible India, Episode - #21: National Rail Museum, New Delhi

Welcome back to another episode of Incredible India. In the previous episode, I took you to Dadhikar Fort, an iconic fort and resort located in Rajasthan's Alwar.

In this episode, we are getting back to the capital city, New Delhi where we will see an incredible collection of old locomotives and coaches in India's biggest rail museum, the National Rail Museum, Delhi.

National Rail Museum

The museum was opened to the public way back in February 1977 by the Indian Railways. It hosts the largest collection of Real-Life Railway exhibits in the country. It has a huge collection of Locomotives and coaches, some even 160 years old, collected from the Princely states across the Indian Subcontinents. Some of the exhibits are super rare and are in operational condition.

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They also have an indoor museum gallery with a collection of miniature locomotive parts and exhibits featuring the furniture of the trains and other interesting artefacts collected from across the Indian Subcontinent.

How to reach

The park is located in Chankyapuri, New Delhi, just beside the Bhutan Embassy. Since Delhi is one of the most prominent tourist places and the capital city, it is well connected with the rest of India and the world.

You can come by road from the neighbouring cities like Faridabad, Gurugram, Noida etc. You can take the metro if you are coming from Gurugram, it will take you less than an hour from Gurugram Bus station, the nearest metro station is "Sir M. Vishweshwaraiah Moti Bagh".

From there you can walk for a few minutes to reach the gate of the museum.

^{Source - Google Maps}

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The nearest airport is the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport which is super close and it will take you 15 minutes in a cab if you are coming from the airport. So, people coming from far-off places can safely land there and take this easy option.

Exploring the Museum - Outside Exhibitions

There was only one entry gate where you could buy your tickets just at the gates. The ticket prices are just nominal too. Check out the ticket Price Chart

You will see a big guide map just by the gates and there is a lot of information on this map. It shows all the locomotives and coaches' names and they are represented on the map with their corresponding numbers. So, having a snap of this might be useful.

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As you might expect from a railway museum, you will see a lot of old locomotives both steam and diesel-operated, placed on multiple tracks in parallel.

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They need a fresh coat of paint every few years and no wonder most of them were shining brightly. The most common colours were black, red and dark green.

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There were a lot of children who came to see the museum. They were regrouping in the park in the middle. I have never been to this place as a student but I would have loved a place like this for sure.

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I loved to walk along the train tracks, it felt like you travelled back in time. Most of these locomotives used to run on tracks more than a century ago!

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This museum boasts some of the most unique and rarest exhibits in India. I didn't know about trains a lot. But each exhibit had a small description which you can read and get to know where it was built and who built a particular coach or locomotive.

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One of the interesting exhibits was a crane manufactured by Ransomes & Rapier, a major British manufacturer of railway equipment and cranes. This crane was not in the best of conditions. It had levers on both sides which used to be operated by men standing and rotating those big wheels.

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If you get tired and hungry by walking all over the park, you can go to the cafeteria and have yourself some snacks with drinks. The interior was nice but there were just a couple sitting inside.

It also has a miniature train set with two separate tracks, one in the middle of the hall and the other which creates almost a full loop of the entire building. Sadly, some parts of the tracks were damaged so the models could not move.

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It looks very beautiful from the outside too with a statue of a lady on the top. I am not sure what it represents, it kind of looks like the Statue of Liberty but the wheel/shield was confusing me.

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Not just raw materials and people were transported but special coaches were made to transport livestock as well!

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You will find all the models efficiently placed in an area of 11 acres or so. There is not much of a physical strain as most of the locomotives are placed parallel to each other taking up not much space.

And all of these are encompassed by a beautiful garden.

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Even the benches were painted as chess and ludo boards to get the attention of those kids who come here for school visits and with their families.

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Not only just trains but they tried to replicate the old platform designs as well. The attention to detail in this place is amazing, there are a lot of signboards and posters telling you about each of the important details. It is a great place for learning and inciting curiosity, especially in young minds.

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This yellow locomotive has two eyes in the front and looks so cute, wish they added a mouth as well but back then they were not concerned with aesthetics, I guess.

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Another interesting aspect of the museum is you can take a toy train and go around the park, which is a unique experience. You need to take a separate ticket for this ride and might have to wait for a long time, especially on weekdays when footfall is low.

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They didn't have a lot of ride simulators working on that day as they were doing maintenance on some of the tracks. You can check out their website to see the list of all the ride options.

The Indoor Gallery

The interior was as beautiful as the outside exhibitions. It was a place that held a lot of valuable information, artefacts and documents about Indian railways.

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Railways were primarily built to take away the raw material from the inland to the port to be transported back to Great Britain to be used in their factories and get back the finished produce. It made our colonisers so much money that they invested a lot in creating better railway infrastructures.

They did it for the wrong reason but it helped a little. Well, some estimates say that Britain owes India the equivalent of 45 trillion USD... xD

Anyways, just like locomotives, freight carriers were also important and they were built by the same companies as well. This museum hosts some artefacts showcasing those as well.

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You can see a lot of information on old postage stamps.

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Both steam and diesel loco were prevalent in pre-independent India and there are many miniature models for the same.

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I wonder how it feels to have a restaurant and dining on moving trains making a lot of noise and tremors. Wouldn't it be a little difficult not to spoil your drink? I can even do it on a completely stationary ground. xD

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There are other means to get the information as well. They have an application that explains each exhibit and will give much more details than the written text.

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There were hundreds of miniature models and locomotive parts showing pistons, a transparent model of a steam engine to explain how it works and so many other interesting stuff that I can't show you all. Hopefully, I have sparked an interest in you so you can go and experience it all for yourself. This museum along with all the outdoor exhibits and train simulators will easily take a couple of hours. So, plan accordingly!

I enjoyed it a lot, a place filled with so many history lessons presented in an interesting and fun way! I highly recommend it to anyone and if you are a train lover then you can't miss this!

Stay tuned for more episodes...

Namaste 🙏

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Ep - #20 Dadhikar Fort, Alwar

Ep - #19 Hauz Khas Fort Complex, Delhi

Ep - #18 Garden of Five Senses, Delhi

Ep - #17 Karni Mata Temple, Alwar, Rajasthan

Ep - #16 Radha Rani Temple, Barsana, UP

Ep - #15 National Zoological Park

Ep - #14 Keoladeo National Park

Ep - #13 Lohagarh Fort

Ep - #12. Alwar's Moosi Maharani Ki Chattri

Ep - #11. Red Fort