The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) is one of the oldest mountain railways in India, built in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India, in the state of Tamil Nadu. Under consideration since 1845, the line was finally opened by the British in 1899, and was initially operated by the Madras Railway Company . It connects the town of Mettupalayam with the hill station of Ooty situated at an elevation of 7228 feet (2200 m). The train is one of the few trains in India to be still operated by a steam locomotive.
The NMR track is metre gauge. Between Mettupalayam and Coonoor the line uses the rack and pinion arrangement to climb the steep gradient. On the rack section the train is operated by a steam rack locomotive manufactured by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works of Winterthur in Switzerland, which is always marshalled at the downhill end of the train. The maximum gradient in this rack section is "1 in 12", with an average of "1 in 24.5". Between Coonoor and Ooty, the train is hauled by a YDM4 diesel locomotive and the track is without the rack and pinion arrangement.
The train covers a distance of 45 km (28 miles), travels through 208 curves, 16 tunnels, and 250 bridges. Between Mettupalayam and Ooty, the railway calls at the stations of Hillgrove , Coonoor, Wellington , Aravangadu , Ketti , and Lovedale .
The Palghat division of the Indian Railways, which operates the NMR, incurs an annual shortfall of Rs 4 crores. (~1 million USD). During the Centenary celebrations of Nilgiri Mountain Railway in 1999 the then Railway Minister Nitish Kumar announced that the line would soon be electrified. In October 2004, UNESCO decreed that the NMR would be declared a World Heritage Site in mid-2005 after it fulfilled the necessary criteria.
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