Colour drives the message home

TRAINS BETWEEN Beach and Tambaram normally perform only the mundane task of taking people to work and back home, but now, someone has come forward to add a dash of colour to them - literally.

`Sundaram Home Train,' an electric train painted blue (the house colour of Sundaram), rolled out of Tambaram on Monday morning promising something new for jaded city commuters. The train has been introduced to publicise the company's home finance schemes. It was flagged off on Monday morning by Mr. Nitin Palany, Managing Director, Sundaram Home Finance, in the presence of Mr. V.Ramabhadran, Executive Director, and Mr. S. R.Choudhary, Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer, Southern Railway.

So what's different about this train? The drab brown and cream or green and cream has been replaced by the new colours and finally, will look like a house with tiled roofing.

A slogan says, ``Its our way of adding colour to life's journey.''

Claimed to be the first of its kind in South India, the train will sport its new colours for a year. ``Our target is all the passengers across the 32-km stretch, touching 16 stations.

Why a suburban train? Because a train journey is much more than mere travel and provides a conducive atmosphere for interaction with commuters.

``We wanted to seize on this opportunity, catch them when they are deciding among three or four housing options,`` said Mr. Vinod Nair, associate vice- president, PSL Erickson, the group which conceived the idea for Sundaram.

More important, a highly visible train costs less to advertise, than hoardings.

Gradually, the interiors are also to be repainted and changed.

If the idea clicks, it could mean more trains with more logos and slogans.

The Southern Railway would welcome it - it gets about Rs. 9 lakhs a year, plus a monthly rent, for every train.

By Saptarshi Bhattacharya

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Section  : Southern States
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