Isn’t it amazing that the
workhorses of the Sri Lankan Railway System are the 13 functioning (the
fourteenth of the fourteen was destroyed by the LTTE) Canadian Diesel Engines
(built by General Motors Canada from 1954 to 1966) imported as part of the
Colombo Plan Aid Project?
The dead ducks appear to be the
French Engines imported during the Chandrika Kumaratuga regime, at huge cost and
the latest crop of ever failing engines from China. It must be stressed that we
WILL NOT have a functioning Railway if not for these Canadian Engines.
I am sure the return on
Investment, the productivity and millions of KMs driven and MOST IMPORTANTLY
the RELIABILITY is beyond imaginable. I SALUTE the technicians and engineers
who built these outstanding train engines, and also those within our Railways
Department who strive to maintain them, in light of lack of spare parts, which
result in them having to improvise, and especially manufacture spares to keep
these giants of steel, all 80 Tonnes of them on the rails!! Who would have guessed
that in 2014 they were still as good as new!
This is a tribute to the days,
when bribes, commissions and personal glory were set aside in the NATIONAL
INTEREST and the far sighted leaders of the ERA who determined that this was
what we needed. NONE of them would have believed that they all (except for the
one blown up by the LTTE) survive and thrive to this day to pull the main
intercity trains of the day.
This is clear evidence if it was
still needed, that bribery and corruption, on the scale of Norochcholai, and other
Prestigious infrastructural projects result in WASTE pure and simple, with the Country
having to pay a high price for the sins of their elected representatives who put
SELF BEFORE COUNTRY and talk on the stage with the lie of COUNTRY BEFORE SELF!!
I took the overnight train from Gal
Oya to Fort, having booked a third class sleeperette four days before travel, as
all other bookable places including the births had been booked in advance. The train
departed on time, and arrived in Fort on time, and the journey was smooth, and thanks
to the wonderful purr of the engine, which I am sure an experienced trainspotter
can identify, as to class and type of engine, was the Manitoba imported a year before
I was born would likely be in service after I pass on!!
