?Commonwealth Express? Train Attracts More than Seven Lakh Visitors
?Commonwealth Express? train, which has attracted more than seven lakh visitors so far during its about three months? journey across the country, is now arriving on its final destination in the capital for public viewing. The exhibition train will be available for public viewing at Pragati Maidan railway station from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. from 29th September 2010 till 14th October 2010.
The train has so far travelled to 47 places which mainly include Ajmer, Agra, Jhansi, Gandhinagar, Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Mysore Thgiruvanthapuram, Maduri, Chennai, Mancheswar, Raipur, Dhanbad, Kolkata, New Jalpaiguri, Gaya, Patna Varanasi, Lucknow, Una, Haridwar, Chandigarh, Ambala, Patiala, Udhampur, Jalandhar, Amritsar and other places since its inauguration on 24th June 2010 at Delhi by the Minister of Railways Mamata Banerjee. The main purpose of this special exhibition train is to spread awareness about sports and Information Technology especially among the youth and among the masses in general. The first stop of this train was at Amritsar on 25th after its flag off, to coincide with the event of arrival of Queen?s Baton of Commonwealth Games in India. The itinerary of this train was planned in such a way that the arrival of the train at a particular place also coincided with the arrival of Queen?s Baton as far as possible.
This train consists of 11 coaches out of which five coaches are being allocated to Railway Sports Promotion Board to showcase the history of Commonwealth Games, details of the venues of the events to be held in the month of October, 2010 in Delhi, to spread general awareness about different sports and to give wide publicity to the sports icons of India who have brought laurels to the country with their stupendous feats. Besides, one coach is exclusively dedicated to the Railway Sports Promotion Board to showcase their history, activities as well as achievements Railway sports persons at national and international level.
In the remaining 6 coaches of this exhibition train, Department of Information & Technology are showcasing the capacity and the work done in the country in the area of Information and Communication technology and the initiatives carried out by the Department of Information Technology and its affiliated entities in the fields of e-governance, infrastructure, technology relevant to rural India, language interfacing technology etc. The ?IT Story of India? is being told through the six coaches by way of backlit translites, front-lit digitally printed posters, short informational films etc. To reach out to the common man in as effective manner as possible, the content of the backlit translites has been made available in regional languages in addition to English, and the language changeover was happened in ten languages (as and when the train enters such a State).