Rail Museum in Chennai waiting to welcome visitors

The Regional Rail Museum has started to receive school students

Are school outings back? A Facebook post by Chennai Rail Museum that shows children from a play school in Chetpet enjoying a toy-train ride, a trip to the movie theatre and other attractions at the sprawling campus seems to suggest that life is back to normal. In fact, the Rail Museum did not take a break during the months of January and February of 2022 when COVID numbers were high due to the Omicron variant.

However, the museum has started getting visitors mainly in the recent weeks. School tours and industrial visits by college students contributed to a big percentage of visitors it received in the pre-COVID days.

“We already had three to four play schools come on a trip to the place and we hope this will pick up before they break for summer vacation,” says N. Baskaran, assistant curator, Chennai Rail Museum.

Remember it was in mid-February that play schools in the city opened after the State Government gave them the nod after two years.

In the Pre-COVID days, the staff used to send mails to schools to inform them about the facility and its timings. Now, they say, they want the place to buzz with the laughter of children in a gradual manner.

Once summer holidays begin, the museum will gear up to receive the general public in big numbers.

A good number of the visitors are from in and around the neighbourhood. “We are planning to deploy more people across the campus to ensure safety and security,” says Baskaran.