The railway ministry on Friday launched the Rail Heritage Digitisation Project” of Indian Railways in collaboration with Google.
The project is first of its kind to showcase country’s Rail Heritage to National and International audience in an online story-telling platform.
The project can be accessed through link:“https://artsandculture.google.com/project/indian-railways”. The project is a landmark effort, first of its kind in this part of the globe, to showcase country’s Rail Heritage to National and International audience in an online story-telling platform. Chairman, Railway Board, Ashwani Lohani, other Railway Board Members, Vice President, South East Asia and India, Google, Rajan Anandan, Director, Google Cultural Institute, Amit Sood, other Railway Board Officials, Dignitaries from Google, UNESCO representatives and Railway Enthusiasts were among those present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Piyush Goyal said “At the outset, let me congratulate the Indian Railways and the Google Arts and Culture Association for this wonderful initiative, which has taken over 2 years of hard work, research, inquiry and execution. It is often said that civilisation is built over millenia by countless generations, with each generation leaving its footprints in the sands of time. A culture must reserve these footprints to remember what it was and where it came from.
Whenever we look at the evolution of the transport system in India, all these rich traditions, history and culture will play an important role in understanding how the Indian Railways has evolved. Being a 165 year old organisation, the Railways has a lot of material which we need to preserve and leave behind for posterity. Mark Twain had once said, “Our most valuable and instructive materials in the history of mankind are treasured in India”. The Indian Railways has a lot of treasured moments for the world to see how technologies evolved over time: Mumbai has a special place in the Railways, being the first Railway line to be set up in India. It was way back on 16th April, 1853 when the first train ran between Bori Bunder and Thane. We will be setting up 22 digital screens across different locations in India for showcasing this historic project”.
Goyal further said that this project is the largest cultural heritage digitization project not only in India but possibly the Asia Pacific Region. He expressed the hope that collaborative efforts will continue to expand the project further and possibly make it the largest such endeavour to preserve Railway Heritage in the world. Goyal described this project as the gift from the 13 Lakh Railways employees to the 130 crore citizens of India”.
