I was enquiring for a cab for a weekend travel and a driver from a company called "Boatmail Travels" contacted - I enquired why it was called Boat mail/ (Summa padagu madiri Karo?)
He said that "Boatmail" was a historical train where a person can buy one ticket from Egmore to Colombo - and travel by train and boat with the same ticket!
The railway portion was from Madras to Tuticorin (22 hrs) and passengers embarked on a steamer to Colombo in ceylon! After the Pamban bridge ...was built in 1914, the train's route changed and went from Madras to Dhanushkodi.
A much shorter ferry service then took the passengers to Talaimannar in Ceylon, from where another train went to Colombo. The 35-kilometre long ferry journey was considerably shorter than the 270-kilometre long Tuticorin-Colombo route. The crossing used to take 1½ hours.
The South Indian Railway opened the Indo-Ceylon rail connection basically for movement of Indian labour to work in their plantations; While Ceylon constructed 67 mile branch railway track from Madawchiya - Talaimannar, the Indians constructed track from Madurai - Mandapam across a bypass bridge to Rameshwaram -Dhanushkoti. This started in 1914 (6 yrs after Egmore station was built). The 3 steamers which took passengers 22 miles across the sea were named Curzon, Elgin and Hardinge, named after three viceroys!
The 2 countries were only 21 miles apart a narrow strait. So instead of a rail-sea connection, they constructed two piers - One at Dhanushkodi and the other at Talaimannar - Between these two points a steamer service was provided.
In 1964, the 6 coach of the Pamban Dhanshkodi passenger with 200+ people was washed away by the sea when a giant 20 foot wave rose from the turbulent sea and smashed the train! The tragedy came to light on Dec 25th (Tsunami -o?)
Move over you stupid rajdhanis, Shatabdis, and Durontos!
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