The present metalled ghat road from Kallar to Coonoor, a distance of 25 km which has 14 hair-pin bends and a gradient of one 18 ft, which facilitated carriage traffic from Madras to Ooty, was mainly constructed by Colonel G.V. Law in 1871. It is gratifying to note that the cascade of the Coonoor river near Wenlock bridge on the Coonoor-Mettupalayam road named after Law, continues to bear the same name.
The Coonoor-Mettupalayam road was extended to Udagamandalam, covering a distance of about 15 km. The Kotagiri-Mettupalayam road (about 34 km long) which was 8 ft wide to begin with, was widened to 17 ft in 1872-75 with a gradient of one in 17 by the Dist. Engineer, Major Morant R.E. and handed over to the District Board in 1881. During the period from 1819 to 1830, John Sullivan's contribution was, apart from laying the route to Ooty, that he built the first house called Stone House in this place. This formed the nucleus of Government offices.
Further, at his own expense, he conducted experiments on agricultural and horticultural crops and in animal husbandry to find the most suitable crops and breeds of milch animals for future settlers.Next to the magnificent task of laying the road to Ooty, the British took up, around 1880, the stupendous task of connecting Mettupalayam to Ooty by rail. A Swiss engineer, M. Riggenback and Major Morant of Kotagiri road fame prepared an estimate of 1,32,000 pounds (currency) for laying the rack railway and floated a company called The Rigi Railway & Co Ltd. Since capital was not forthcoming, Mr. Richard Wolley of Coonoor came forward to advance money on the condition that the contract would be entrusted to Mr. Wolley by the Government of Chennai.
Route: Mettupalayam - Coonor - Ooty
Coonoor is situated 6,000 feet above sea level at the southeast corner of the Nilgiri plateau and at the head of the principal pass from the plains.
Up this Ghat runs a road 21 miles long and a rack railway 16 ¾ miles from Mettupalaiyam in Coimbatore district. The place was constituted a municipality in 1866. Coonoor remained a terminus for the Nilgiri line for eight years.
The extension from Coonoor to Ootacamund was constructed by the Government of India and the line was opened up to Fernhill on September 15, 1908, and up to Ootacamund, a month later. Rack system was discarded for this extension though the ruling gradient is as severe as 1 in 23. The Ooty terminus was named Udagamandalam, the Tamil word for Ootacamund.
Main Feature
Udagamandalam Tours, The main feature of this line is the unique rack system and the equally unique and complicated locomotives. To quote from Sir Guilford L. Molesworth's report of 1886:
“The locomotive used for working on the Abt System has two distinct functions: first, that of traction by adhesion as in an ordinary loco and second, that of traction by pinions acting upon the rack bars.
Udagamandalam India Tours, The brakes are four in number-two hand brakes action by friction and two acting by preventing the free escape of air from cylinder and thus using compressed air in retarding the progress of the engine.
The former are used for shunting whilst the latter for descending steep gradients.
One of the hand brakes acts on the tyres of the wheels in the ordinary manner and the second acts on grooved surfaces of the pinion axle but can be used in those places where the rack is laid.
Even after hundred years, the brake system on Nilgiri locomotives is as intricate and cumbersome as it was in 1886.
Ooty Tours
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