Get ready for Joyride in 150-year-old steam locos by 2019

New Delhi, April 9: The next year will witness something joyous which will take you 150 years back. Railways have raised its sleeves to revive three 150 years old engines which will promote tourism. The National Rail Museum is restoring three locos, the oldest dating back to 1865.

"We are restoring them (locos) for tourism purposes. The first one to be ready by this year-end is the Fireless loco and is likely to be in the NRM for tourist use," NRM Director, Amit Saurastri said. The other two would be ready by 2019.

The three locos named RamGoti, Phoenix and Fireless were manufactured in the year 1865, 1920 and 1951 respectively. Each loco has a unique history. While Phoenix loco was last used at Bihar's Jamalpur for shunting purposes, RamGoti was used by the municipality in Kolkata for garbage disposal. Fireless Loco was called so as it had no boiler and instead there was a pressure vessel mounted on the under-frame.

The steam was collected in the pressure vessel from a static boiler. It was used for shunting in areas of inflammable material such as oil, jute etc. Due to the limited capacity of the steam accumulator, this locomotive had limited speed (18.5 mph) and was limited to short area movements. This locomotive was last used in Sindhri Fertilizers, Jharkhand.