Four Cauvery Delta Branches

The Nidamangalam Jn. - Mannargudi M.G. Branch

16 April 1968 - from the Mannargudi end. 12 posts/km.

Mannargudi is a typical town in the heart of the delta and also the hq. of a taluk. It is nearly a square with 2.5 km sides; R. Pamani, one of the distributaries of R. Cauvery, flows along its Nn. and then En. sides, irrigating the fertile lands around it. There is a famous 12th century temple dedicated to Rajagopala Swamy on the W. of the town. The roads from Mannargudi radiate to Kumbakonam (37 km. in the N, past Nidamangalam), Tiruvarur (22 in NE), Tiruturaipundi (27 in SE), Muthupettai (37 in S), Pattukkottai (37 in SW) and Thanjavur (22 in WNW). With direct bus services to these important towns, the railway was fighting a losing battle. I had travelled this line a number of times as a boy, since Mannargudi was my late father's native place and I spent 1947-48 with my grandparents there [1]. This journey in April 1968 turned out to be my last.

13-0 Mannargudi (alt. 50') Reached the rly. station, which was about 1.5 km to the N past R. Pamani, from the bus stand, having arrd. there by bus from Nagapattinam via Tiruvarur. The station, aligned nearly W/E, was approached by a macadam road leading to a rectangular open space in front of the 45 m long, tiled [2] block of Class III waiting space - entry -Booking & Parcel office - SM's room - upper class waiting room, the last a hangover from a more glorious past. The road then led E to a block of three small railway qrs., and, past a couple ferilizer godowns, to a modest goods shed constructed of corrugated, G.I. sheets. On the 120 m. long, unpaved pfm. were a few shady trees and cement benches. Beyond the line served by the pfm., to the N, were two loops and a siding. The line extended a little to the E and had a siding with a loop for the goods shed. These rails had been laid in 1915. There was no turntable or triangle. To all N and E were flat, open paddy fields.

The train from Nidamangalam arrd. at 11:18, hauled tender first by an F class engine (0-6-0). I normally do not note down the serial no. and other particulars of locos, but this one was F 37272, made in DUBS, Glascow 1903; 1 axle SIR 1901; crankshaft 1926. It had a 3 ft. tall chimney [3]. There were just two carriages, GT & TYLR. I counted 30 adults and 15 children getting off the train and exiting. There were fewer passengers for the return trip to Nidamangalam. The engine moved along the loop and attached itself to the other, now front, end. d. 11:38 (sch. 11:35). Smooth right curve, heading WNW, with R. Pamani, some 200 m to the left, the road to Kumbakonam on its bank. Level flat fields on both sides, then passed a long row of large, brick-walled, asbestos-roofed paddy godowns. Gradients were L or 1 in 1000 up or down most of the way. Past more paddy godowns, a gentle right curve, and entered.

11- 4: Haridranadhi (54'), a 11:43, d 11:44. Served by a slightly curved pfm. at left (W) with a modest single room, tiled office and a waiting hall jutting outside. No loops or sidings. A village to fore-left and some paddy godowns at some distance on the right, all surrounded by flat fields with brown/light grey soil. Then passed occasional clusters of coconut and tamarind trees, also bamboos; stacks of paddy straw on the fields. A short stretch with 1 in 200 up, another right curve, heading nearly N-NNW. Some patches of young sugarcane. This train accelerated quite fast, and settled to a brisk 48 kmph. Pleasantly surprising, since the track was so far ballasted with brown red earth, occasionally mixed with cinder and no gravel. Was it because the engine had so little to haul?

5-1: Rajappaiyyan Chavadi (60'), a 11:52, d 11:53. Modest brick office-cum-waiting hall on pfm. at left with shady banyan trees. Siding to right with small G.I. goods shed. Continued across flat fields, R. Pamani running some 200 m to the left all the while with the road to Kumbakonam on its En. bank. Approaching the Jn., the ballast had a small proportion of red sandstone chips. Another river, Koraiyar, came into view on the right. The Kumbakonam road suddenly left the bank of R. Pamani and, as the line curved a little to the left, level-crossed over to the right to the bank of Koraiyar. The line then took a sharp right curve, and level-crossing the Thanjavur - Nagapattinam road, turned E as the Thanjavur - Nagore m.g. line joined at the left (N). The twosome crossed R. Koraiyar on 5 x 30' adjacent girder bridges and the train entered.

0 (= 30-0 from Thanjavur Jn) Nidamangalam Jn. (75') a 12:08. A low island pfm at right (S), beyond which were two more loops. The 150 m. long, high main pfm.to the left (N) served the main line beyond which were two sidings with two small goods sheds between them. The main pfm. was sheltered for 1/3 of its length, past light refreshment and fruit stalls, in front of the block of Parcel office / SM's office/ waiting hall at the En end. A few steps down the exit to the N was the Booking Office, opening out to the road leading to the bus stand 200 m. to the N.

Took a bus for the return journey via Tiruvarur to Nagapattinam, where my parents were then residing.

Notes

  1. Life in the Delta in the days just before and immediately after independence was cosy for the rich and carefree for the middle class. Many aged couples, like my grandparents, preferred to live on in their peaceful hometowns or villages in the delta, rather than join a son working in a distant town, where good rice was not readily available and the rented accommodation was cramped. My grandfather was a mirasdar - absentee-landlord - who, though owning just two acres of paddy land in a village nearby, liked to append Esq. after his name! The land was tilled by a contract labourer, who handed over 75% (in later years, 60%) of the harvest every January in lieu of rent. Storing it in a wooden bin in his large house, he would sell it later in the year when the price ruled higher. Supplemented with Rs. 5/-, dutifully remitted by my father from Pondicherry out of his monthly salary by money-order, every need of my grandparents was taken care of. For, in 1947, gold sold at Rs. 20/- per sovereign (of 8 grams) and one could fill his stomach in a decent hotel with a full rice meal for just 4 annas (25 Paise).

    My grandfather did not trust the trains and preferred to go by a bus which required minutes of hard work by the conductor at a handle to rotate a fan that would blow air through a bed of hot charcoal at the bottom of a tall column fixed at the rear of the vehicle. What fuel that war period contraption used, I still speculate. But around that time the trains ran quite full, as most people preferred them to the rickety buses that ran bouncingly on metalled, but unasphalted, roads. As the roads became better and the buses faster and more frequent in the sixties, the situation started changing.

  2. “Railway” tiles, also known as Mangalore tiles, were widely used on the houses of coastal Kerala and Karnataka; rectangular, flat, made from fine red clay and fired at a high temperature, they could withstand the heavy downpours of many SW monsoons, and were standard material for the roofing in most SI and M&SM railway buildings. The much cheaper "country" tiles, used for roofing houses in much of the delta, were smaller and curved; made from coarser clay at a lower heat, they were brown with larger pores and weathered quickly, requiring replacement in five years or so. They too were used, but rarely, in the smaller railway stations.

  3. My Australian friend travelled this branch a few months later, with the two-carriage train being hauled by a class E (4-4-4T) engine “with an extended coal bunker, but no side tanks.” Still later, in 1972 (?), passing through Nidamangalam Jn., I noticed that a rail car had been pressed into service on this branch; it was perhaps one of the number which had been running between Tiruchirappali and Manamadurai Jns. The Mannargudi branch was closed in 1975, much earlier than the other three m.g. branches in the Cauvery delta. The locals protested half-heartedly, but were not really willing to patronize the train.

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