MUMBAI: Buoyed by support from the Union Ministry of Culture, Indian
Railways is busy preparing a final dossier on the historic Matheran
Light Railway (MLR) for a place in the World Heritage List prepared
by Unesco. Railway officials hope to have the Matheran hill train on
the Unesco list in 2009.

Indian Railways did the tentative listing of the century-old
Matheran hill train with Unesco in 2005 itself. However, the deluge
on 26/7 later that year, in and around Mumbai, washed away almost
half the tracks and rails of the 20-km Matheran railway. At several
spots, the original alignment itself was nowhere to be seen because
of massive landslides on the mountains.

However, the Central Railway spent close to two years and
considerable funds on resurrecting the toy train and restarted
operations in February 2007.

Rajesh Agrawal, executive director (heritage) at the ministry of
railways, said the time is right to push for MLR's entry into
Unesco's heritage list. "Last year, the ministry of culture could
not back our application for MLR as they had already selected two
other sites. But this year, they have promised to push for the
Matheran train with Unesco,'' Agrawal said.

Against this backdrop, Agrawal said a detailed dossier would be
submitted to Unesco by November this year.

Agrawal said the final dossier to Unesco would have to give detailed
justification for and description of the Matheran rail. "We would
have to prove how MLR has universal value for tourists coming from
any part of the world. Besides giving the complete history of the
site, Unesco also needs to be convinced of good management of the
place to declare it as a world heritage site,'' he said.

Agrawal was quick to add that Unesco needs a lot of image
inventoryaudio , video and still photographswhich document the
journey of the site over the years to prove it's stability and
importance. After all, Matheran rail has undergone plenty of changes
in terms of carriages, coach interiors, locomotives , track
alignment and the frequency of its run.

"We expect ground inspection of the Unesco team sometime in August
or September next year. If they are satisfied with what they see on
ground, Matheran should be listed by the end of next year,'' he said.

The toy train had its first run from Neral to reach the top of the
breath-taking mountains on April 1, 1907. Matheran Light Railway,
founded by Mumbaibased entrepreneur Abdul Hussain Peerbhoy,
celebrated it's centenary on April 1, 2007. Abdul Hussain, son of
business tycoon Sir Adamjee Peerbhoy, had personally supervised the
construction of the narrow gauge line from Neral to Matheran from
1904 to 1907.

Later, it was amalgamated into Central Railway (CR).

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai/Matheran_toy_train_in_Unesc
o_heritage_list_soon/articleshow/3322585.cms

4 Aug 2008, 0520 hrs IST