At The Rail Museum
It was on the second weekend of July that we decided to go to a museum of trains in Chennai at Integral coach factory near Perambur. I came to know about that hidden place when I was browsing for a friend of mine and I wanted to visit that place. I never had an idea of how it would look, but I found it interesting as I knew that there was a toy train ride inside. So, I told my husband about the place. He, being a lover of trains, wanted to visit the museum too. It was a very sunny day but still we decided to go and booked a cab from home at 10.00 AM and got down somewhere near the place and walked searching for it. It was a bit interior and no one seemed to know that place. We wondered if there will be any visitors inside. Anyway, we went walking and found the place. We bought tickets for each of us and also for the camera phone and went inside.
It looked like an ancient place with faded walls and there were a good number of people inside and most of them brought their kids. As we walked around, we found trains of the olden days and it was interesting to see trains of different structures. Most of them were rusted and a few were half painted and the rest looked as if in a good working state. We took a few photographs of the trains and ourselves.
We walked on the lawn which was poorly maintained and reached a place where the toy train ride started. We bought tickets and waited for the train. It came towards us slowly with its iconic sound. Even though I have travelled in train so many times, travelling in a toy train was fun. It aroused the child in me and I felt excited. The train took us a tour around the museum, where there were more plants and trees than trains. I was taking video of the whole journey which was no more than 10 minutes.
After our ride we were wondering where to go. A person, who seemed to be an employee there, guided us to an auditorium where so many models of trains and photographs were exhibited. There were many interesting facts inside, models of old clocks and bells used in trains and railway stations, old train engines, small models of trains and the one we loved the most was a working model of a train with a long track. After visiting it, we came out and found a children’s park where no one was found playing. Seeing the swing I became enthusiastic and wanted to play. I loved playing in it but before the security found me, I slipped away. With this we left the museum.
We started searching for restaurants nearby but couldn’t find a good one. So, we went to Park Town and had our lunch at a restaurant named ‘Bell’ and returned home by evening. It was a pleasant and lovely day.
