Commonwealth Express comes to town on Sunday

The special train would have touched 49 cities in the country after it completes its run

KSRTC to operate special services for people to view the exhibition

The special exhibition train promoting the coming Commonwealth Games (CWG) to be held in New Delhi will reach Mysore on Sunday, after covering 33 cities across the country. The exhibition will be open to public from Monday.

The Commonwealth Express Exhibition Train was flagged off by Union Minister for Railways Mamata Banerjee on June 24 as a special gesture by the Railways to promote the event. The special train would have touched 49 cities in India after it completes its run.

Senior Divisional Commercial Manager Anup Dayanand Sadhu told presspersons here on Friday that the exhibition train would be stationed at Ashokapuram and the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation would operate special bus services to help people view it.

He said priority would be accorded to students. All schools in the city and surrounding regions had been notified and the scheduling for each institution had been done to prevent overcrowding. “We expect around 60,000 students to view the exhibition and learn about the CWG that will be held in Delhi from October,” said Mr. Sadhu.

The special train, comprising 11 coaches, will give a comprehensive picture and information about the CWG. The first coach will give a brief introduction on the Games, the participating nations, the mascot Shera and the Queen's Baton Relay. The second coach will give details on the venues and games and will showcase models of the various stadia while the third one will display sports gear and the calendar of various sporting events.

The fourth coach of the Commonwealth Express will present over 5,000 pictures and images of the past CWGs, medallists in the Asian Games, Olympic medallists and world champions, while the fifth coach will focus on how the Indian Railways is nurturing budding sportspersons. The remaining coaches will highlight the growth and the success story of information technology in India.

Mr. Sadhu said the train would be stationed on Platform No. 1 at Ashokapuram. Priority would be given to school students from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. while it would be open to the general public between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Precautions

Security arrangements will be stepped up at the venue of the exhibition and a control room has been established to monitor the crowd. The Mysore Division will also felicitate three sportspersons from the city — Poojashree (tennis), Tejaswi (chess) and Srinivas (table tennis) — on the occasion.