Bhau’s Express Train number 15380 has arrived at the platform. The passengers are guided into an imaginary city with moving models of steam engines, diesel engines, underground trains, trolleybuses, drive-in theatre, highways, and ghats under a night sky full of stars and planets as seen on April 16, 1853, when the first train ever ran in India.
“Get ready for a wonderful experience,” says a preprogrammed voice that guides the visitor to the world of railways in this imaginary city that has been painstakingly crafted by the late B S (Bhau) Joshi.
Twenty-five years on, the show at the Joshi Museum of Miniature Railways at Kothrud is managed by Joshi’s son Ravi Joshi and grandson Devavrat who have now designed a working model of the indigenously built Vande Bharat Express.
As part of the silver jubilee celebrations, a special miniature scale model of ‘Vande Bharat’ was unveiled at a function, by Maharashtra Higher and Technical Education Minister and Pune’s Guardian Minister Chandrakant Patil this week during a visit to the museum that was set up on April 1, 1998.
The Vande Bharat is India’s first fast-speed train, which is currently operational on 11 routes.
(Express)
The Vande Bharat is India’s first fast-speed train, which is currently operational on 11 routes.
“We made the model based on the actual drawings from the Indian Railways. All the minute details were taken into consideration while designing the static model. Work is in progress on the working miniature model of Vande Bharat and it will be soon showcased in the Museum,” says 60-year-old Ravi Joshi.
“Collecting train models was not just a hobby, but an obsession with my father,” says the 60-year-old who is now carrying the legacy forward. “For me, this miniature city in the museum is the magical world of my childhood. Then the script has been written in such a way that any adult who visits the museum is transformed into a 10-year-old by Aladdin’s Genie,” he adds.
A fully-functional station yard with six platforms, announcement systems, three main lines, goods loading facilities, turntables and cranes are part of the layout that has 26 points and 65 signals. A two-lane highway with moving cars, fairground with a circus that has changing shows, Ferris wheel and merry-go-round, apart from a business centre, swimming pool, restaurants that go up and down a tower, and as many as 2000 figures in different poses are part of this unique museum that showcases working scale models of various railways in the world.
Joshi recalls that in the early days, the entire layout had to be operated manually. “My father would give the commentary and I would handle the controls of the panel that has more than 1,000 wires. The layout has signals, points, fences, lamp posts, and flyovers which have been manufactured by hand using chemical etching techniques,” says Joshi.
Today Joshi’s son Devavrat actively participates in coordinating the entire 20-minute show and manages 250 switches on the computer-controlled panel. The Joshis pursued this hobby with such seriousness that Devavrat was sent to Germany to get a better understanding of how miniature-train models are made.
Joshi wants to create a mini-India – akin to the miniature cities in Europe and strongly feels that parents should initiate their children into this educational and fun hobby of railway modeling.
“In Germany, every one out of three families has a set of trains at home,” says Joshi who feels this is one hobby that transcends all barriers like age, sex and educational preferences.
Not surprisingly Joshi’s passion to keep this hobby alive led him to create a mini setup for an 80-year-old at his home and also design train simulation models for the Indian Railways at Dharwad in Karnataka and Margao in Goa for training station masters.