Chennai: Come 15 August, there will be something special at Erode and Coimbatore railway stations in Tamilnadu.
These are the stations where, according to sources, Indian Railways is likely to launch digital museum as a part of a pilot project, this Independence Day.
As a part of the project, true colour, multi-media digital screens (digital museum) will be established at these transportation points which will screen the rich past of the government transporter and its present developments.
A dry run of the scheme was said to have been held on 11-12 August prior to this. Sources point out that these two stations aren’t the only ones to have digital museums. They will be started at 20 other stations across the nation along with these two.
The digital mode to display railway history is said to have been taken after the idea to invest money and create a separate museum by Railways did not receive a boost from the office of the Prime Minister, sources said.
According to them, a communication is said to have been issued by the Director (Heritage), Railway Board, Subrata Nath, on 8 August and the point was put across.
The communication, quoting the minutes of a meeting that took place under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi 26 March, said focus must be on creating digital museums on the walls of the station that depict the department’s history and current developments.
So, the railway ministry is said to have come up with the thought of starting the museum at stations where the true colour digital multi-media screens are already available.
The other stations that are going to have the digital museum are Howrah, Sealdah, Lucknow, Varnasi, Rae Bareli, Sultanpur, Prayag, Ambala, New Delhi, Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Agra Cantonment, Gorakhpur, Guwahati, Katihar, New Jalpaiguri, Jaipur, Secunderabad, Vijayawada and Bengaluru.
The digital screens being used will be 5.1 metres long and have a width ranging from 2.1 metres to 3.2 metres.