Sri Lanka 2

Sri Lanka in 2022

This is a Sri Lanka railway map.

And at its centre is Matale, a small town with five trains a day to Kandy.

Matale ticket office is typical of the network. There are no return tickets, just singles, sold only on the day.

Third class is the norm on the Matale line - five seats across.

Unlucky travellers sometimes get a slatted seat.

Matale's neat station gardens are again very typical.

Today a branch train needs to be rescued, hence two locomotives at the head.

We move to Galoya Junction now, waiting departure aboard one of just two trains a day on the branch to Trincomalee.

But the most is made of things with a parallel departure with the main line train from Colombo to Batticaloa.

Wild elephants are common around Galoya and care is required.

And trains through elephant country travel very cautiously indeed!

Further inland we find a steam crane under repair at Ganewatta.

The steam crane carrying a water supply with it in an old locomotive tender.

There is little freight on today's network and these vans, seen in a siding at Kantale, are now obsolete.

It is always nice to see a pump cart and this example is at Kalawewa.

There is impressive semaphore signalling about too such as here on the approach to Maho Junction.

This is Peradeniya South.

And this is Peradenia Station with, in the distance, a large signal gantry and three Buddhist monks on their way to catch a train.

A really rural station is Bangadeniya, on the Puttallam branch.

And this is a city view in the centre of Colombo.

And finally, a Colombo train winding through the tea plantations by Pidurutalagala,
Sri Lanka's highest mountain at 8281ft.

The end