‘Restaurant on Coach’ to come up on Tiruchi Rail Museum premises

The Tiruchi Railway Division has proposed to set up a ‘restaurant on coach’ at Tiruchi by customising an old rail coach for this purpose to provide a new and different dining experience for rail travellers and the general public.

The Tiruchi Railway Division has proposed to set up a ‘restaurant on coach’ at Tiruchi by customising an old rail coach for this purpose to provide a new and different dining experience for rail travellers and the general public.

The Rail Museum complex, situated close to the Tiruchi railway junction, has been chosen by the railway authorities for setting up the ‘Restaurant on Coach’ facility which will be the first-of-its kind in Tiruchi Railway Division once it gets functional.

Under this novel initiative, an old used air-conditioned coach will be spared by the railways for setting up the restaurant in a coach. The movement of the coach shell with bogie and construction of the basement structure would be done by the railways. The private contractor identified by the railway administration through e-auction would have to completely refurbish the coach interior and customise it and set up A kitchen inside to dish out a variety of food items.

The Tiruchi divisional railway authorities have set the process in motion by issuing a notification for e-auction, scheduled on August 31. The contractor could run the restaurant in the train coach for a period of five years. On completion of the contract, the coach would have to be handed over to the railway administration with interiors to float the tender for the next period, railway sources told The Hindu.

The contractor would have to pay a licence fee to the railways to provide the service, the sources said, adding that exclusive parking space would be given inside the museum premises.  The Tiruchi Rail Museum showcasing a slew of vintage items and objects used during the colonial era is situated on a five-acre campus close to the busy Tiruchi railway junction.

The sources further said indoor dining and outdoor museum view dining space parallel to the coach would be allowed to be created by the contractor. The ‘Restaurant on Coach’ will be the first-of-its kind facility in Tiruchi Division, the sources further said. The proposed new initiative is aimed at generating Non Fare Revenue for the Tiruchi Railway Division. The initiative comes in the wake of a Railway Board communication which listed out a mosaic of innovative ideas for the zonal railways which could be implemented to generate non fare revenue. One among them was to set up restaurants in unused rail coaches.