Date:01/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/07/01/stories/2004070104580500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Last MG train pulls out of Nizamabad station

By Our Staff Reporter

NIZAMABAD, JUNE 30. At the stroke of 4.48 pm on Wednesday evening curtains came down on the only metre gauge railway line in the State when the 7592 Nizamabad-Manoharabad express pulled out of the Nizamabad railway station marking the closure of the historic line for BG conversion works.

As per the announcement of the South Central Railway, the Nizamabad-Manoharabad MG line was closed for passenger traffic from Thursday to facilitate its conversion into BG. In view of the gauge works, the SCR operated its last passenger train between Nizamabad-Manoharabad this evening.

Emotional scenes were witnessed as the Station Manager, J.P.Gopal Keshav, felicitated the crew of the last express train on this route. The driver, Abdul Jabbar Khan, assistant driver, S.Sadanand and guard, B.Sudharao Raju, were garlanded by the Station Manager before they got into the train. At 4.48 pm, the train left the station with just 120 passengers. Curiously enough, the announcement by the SCR authorities about BG works had already witnessed drop in the travelling passengers.

Wednesday brings down curtains on the MG train services on the Secunderabad-Manmad railway line laid by the Nizam State Railways in the early 30s. To develop backward regions of Marathwada in Maharastra, the then Nizam decided to lay railway line in the backward districts of Aurangabad, Parbhani, Nanded and Akola.

Consequent to the demand for unigauge, the then Prime Minister, P.V.Narasimha Rao, gave the green signal for gauge conversion between Manmad and Aurangabad covering a distance of 114 km. This line was commissioned in 1992. There after the Aurangabad-Jalna, Jalna-Parbhani, Parbhani-Purna, Purna-Nanded, Nanded-Mudkhed, Mudkhed-Dharmabad BG works were taken up between 1993 and 2002. The long-pending demand for gauge works between Mudkhed-Nizamabad-Bollarum continued to be neglected.

After a series of struggles, the SCR managed to complete the Dharmabad-Nizamabad section enabling direct link to Mumbai.

But the dreams of the people of Nizamabad for a direct link between Central India and Hyderabad remained unfulfilled. But, the decision to close down the entire 120-km stretch between Nizamabad and Manoharabad for gauge works has brought new hopes to the locals here. If sufficient funds are allocated in the current Railway Budget, the gauge works would be expedited and it is expected to be thrown open for BG traffic by March 2005.