The Sri Lankan Railways - Part 1 Colombo to Kandy - Semaphores, Token exchanges and more.

When one thinks of destinations for train travel Sri Lanka is not on the top or even on most people's list, a shame because this small island nation is home to some of the most scenic and well preserved railways on the planet. In many places it seems time stands still as trains as still controlled by tokens and semaphore signals, a system that is the envy of any heritage railway but even better, its all still real! Our trip today will be on Sri Lanka's first railway, the mainline which runs from the countries capital in Colombo to the upcountry city of Kandy. We will travel on the double track high speed commuter line and then onto the twisty mountain railway into the Allagala mountain range. We will stop at many points along the way and get a firsthand look at the time honored token exchange process. So come along for this visit to one of the mot fascinating rail systems in the world.

[@channaasela9300]

What a comprehensive documentry. Thank you so much. We are so grateful to British who built the Kandy rail way line.

[@sahansankalpasilva6595]

Excellent ! Best wishes from Sri Lanka. 🇱🇰

[@luziapereira6491]

I am very surprised to see these incredible images . I had watched somethings of India railways , but this country make feel so happy . Simple people , great and wonderful nature . I agree just get better in details more modern .I think this country , as Vietnam , Laos , Thailand , are so different and beautiful countries , looks like mine country ( Brazil) . Thank you for share this . Please send more and more . I'm falling love Sri Lanka . Congrats !

[@gstanley1980]

The mechanical aspect of this rail road system is remarkable and still in use. What a technology.

[@channaasela9300]

Great video. Thank you so much showing my most favourite travelling mode, the railway...

[@ufolab57]

Thank you for your hard work and amazing camera skills Brought back a lot of memories traveling as a child from Matara to kandy Now living in Melbourne Australia 🙏👏

[@KT43124]

Most beautiful country and its Railway system. 😊

[@shakilasanjeewa1665]

Beautiful documentary ..❤️Greetings from srilanka 🇱🇰

[@niranfernando2027]

I love the M2 class GM EMD Canadian locos Silver & Blue livery - 60 years and still under long distance service. Amazing. I used to watch the 'Udarata Manike' Colombo - Badulla upcountry train hauled by the Canadian (as they used to be called in the 60's) from my fathers bungalow in Mahavila Estate, Ulapane - passing along the Mahawali Ganga. These engines were preceded by the M1 British diesel's made by Brush Bagnell. They were brown in colour with the single Head lamp - imposing to watch them arrive. They were not as long lived as the M2's. This is a great documentary - thanks

[@geoffreyswan7866]

Great story As a Sri Lankan citizen by birth I remember the sleeper coaches pulled by steam trains in the late 1950s Trip from Mannar to Colombo was a overnight trip Soot always used to get in your eyes comfortable trip

[@bigcasey4143]

There are still some sections of railway in UK that are operated by the Tyer's Electric Token system (as opposed to tablet, but exactly the same principle) There are also still a few mechanically operated signal boxes left operational (Marshbrook being the oldest-1872), the biggest left is the massive (for us in UK) Shrewsbury Severn Junction. I saw well over 150 old mechanical signal boxes disappear to be replaced my modern "Track Circuit Block" colour light signalling in my 40 years service as a train driver on the railway (now retired). The last few remaining (old traditional) signal boxes have been preserved by giving them Grade 2 listed building status, even if they've been left at the lineside without a purpose (Ystrad Mynach being one prime example). BTW... a semaphore signal should be at around 45 degrees to be considered as being in the "off" position.. in a signal box, the mechanically operated signals have detectors above each lever that shows the position of signals as being "On", "Wrong" or "Off"... no driver in UK would possibly accept any of the signals seen at Kandy as being anything other than a "wrong" signal; indeed, the B.R. Rule Book says that an imperfectly shown signal, or if no signal exists where the should be a signal, it must be considered as being at "Danger". At night, the signal lamp (if one was fitted) would have been shining through the red portion of the "spectacle" with the signal having only moving a few degrees from horizontal. The Signal & Telegraph (S&T) gang would have had to be called out to adjust the signal cables, which tend to stretch in the heat & contract in the cold... the longer the cable run the greater the effect. Most signal boxes had slack adjusters that could apply or release tension on individual signal cables in accordance with the heat of the day. There also seems to be a rather worrying lack of ballast shoulder in many places, leaving the track susceptible to heat stress & buckling... but you're right... it is like turning back the railway clock at least 40 years...

[@GeeArrCee]

Absolutely BRILLIANT! Fantastic production!! Subbed and liked! Thank you!

[@vivekraychowdhury4348]

This particular upload, I must say is far better than DW rail episode on Sri Lanka. Very well detailed, on running and history of the Sri Lanka railway system. Comprehensive no nonsense uploads 👍👍

[@nikosjk1]

I appreciate that alot, as the DW documentary was one of my inspirations when making this. Thanks!

[@courtcomposer]

Great job. I can't find part 2. I went to Sri Lanka in 1995. Such a lovelyplace. Especially Kandy and NuwaraEliya.

[@SK-or7dp]

Awesomely done video. It shows how much effort, time and hardwork you've put into this video. Especially the detailed explanation animation of how tablet system works. Excellent video with so much details. Well done👍👍👍👍👍👍did you ever upload the part 2 of this video?

[@raghunathkrishnan5124]

Very great video. Awesome job.

[@LimonFox]

Superb... Congrats

[@NhwNews]

Very well researched and presented with maps and useful commentary. Thank you.

[@prabathmangala2605]

Thanks visit to my mother country.. very nice perfect video... Good luck..

[@Harshana77]

Awesome documentary! I learned many things specially the old signal system.well done guys ! Would like to join you guys at the next time ..👍

[@mudiyansethennakoon2358]

Amazing effort.i now know about Sri Lankan train system. Thanks gentlemen.

[@upendraariyaratne4387]

most enjoyable views and ride while educate the Sri Lankan rail way system which i have not known

[@adithyavaidyanathan]

Excellent compilation :D Loved every bit of it

[@vishnunath1524]

Another wonderful film from your side Nikos. Cheers.

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you Vishnu!

[@krishanthakumara3373]

Impatiently waiting for the part 2 of this. Can you please upload it as early as you can? Excellent work, truly amazing.........

[@TrainsofSriLanka]

Nice Sri Lanka Railway Documentary. Thank you and Welcome to Sri Lanka ❤

[@ts70337]

Just returned from a three week visit to Sri Lanka. We first took the train from Colombo to Anuradhapura. Later we went from Kandy to Ella with a stopover in Nuwara Eliya. Since your Colombo to Kandy was some amazing video work, can't wait to see how you saw the Kandy to Ella portion.

[@Timsvideochannel1]

Thank you, this was a delight to watch.

[@shevanweerasinghe5478]

This is truly an amazing job with the videos, the editing and the narration. Please upload the next few parts as soon as you are able to. I can’t wait to see them. As a Sri Lankan living in USA, also being a huge SL train enthusiast, this was amazing. If you ever plan to visit Sri Lanka again to do any future filming, I would absolutely love to join you.

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you Shevan! Glad you enjoyed the video and I certainly enjoyed visiting your home country. I hope to organize a tour to ride the Sri Lankan railways in the future, I will certainly let you know when that happens!

[@shevanweerasinghe5478]

RailScapes - Trains & Travel: Yes please do. It would be an awesome experience and hope I can be of some assistance to you in some capacity. Best regards to you.

[@fazlanhaq7428]

Great video, very informative and nostalgically shot. But it's been over a year and I am very eagerly awaiting for part 2. Please try your best to post that gem of a section from Kandy towards badulla.

[@vivekraychowdhury4348]

I hope you have completed part II of rail journeys in Sri Lanka, best of luck...👍waiting for part II upload....

[@chamindadodampegamage3086]

Great work. Amazing documentary and factually correct. Wish you all the best. Cheers!

[@Europe58]

Awesome video. Nice footage.You are an expert in this area. One of the best award winning status video.

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you Felix! Glad you enjoyed the video, I definitely enjoyed researching the history of these fantastic rail lines.

[@janakiabeygunawardena4185]

wonderful work, I like it very much thank you for great work

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you!

[@balachandranpalaniappan7471]

Amazing and Beautiful.

[@DonGurugay]

Very useful video with good information. Hope to take this train someday.

[@sandeepchavala2605]

Great Compilation . congratulations.

[@Tuxbotix]

This is an excellent documentary, especially your effort to explain the token system. (I'm from Sri Lanka and prefer train travel over busses for any day xD). Partially the reason for not expanding the up country line to double tracks is due to the steep inclines and lack of space or enough support at some places. To further prove this point, some locomotives (M9 - the blue-yellow loco seen when arriving to Gampaha station, M10, etc) aren't allowed to go beyond Kandy due to weight and restrictions in making tight turns. Even if this was possible to expand, the astronomical costs seem to discourage them to expand much.

[@rk11366]

Truley amazing work Nikoos.. You can easily convert all your works to top level documentaries which can be used for future.

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you Ramakrishna! I hope to do more soon, just takes a long time to do all the editing.

[@thayal123]

Very useful information and thoroughly enjoyed

[@raghunathkrishnan5124]

When can we expect part 2? Waiting for it. Thank you.

[@hannanaism]

Nice work Nikos ! Greetings from Sri Lanka !

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you Ahmed, glad you enjoyed it!

[@dhammikekw7981]

Excellent video and it appears that you are a professional qualified person I could tell from the way you presented the it. May God bless you. 👍👍❤️❤️👍👍👍❤️

[@trailwayt9H337]

🌹I REALY IMPRESSED BY THIS VIDEO. SO THANKS MY BROTHER. AND THANKS TO SREE LANKAN RAILWAYS. GOOD EVENT🌹👍

[@qmsarge]

Good video. There is a book "Yakada Yaka" written by Carl Muller. Rambukana incline etc finds a special mention here.

[@nuwantnp]

Excellent documentary !

[@hasithaniroshan2840]

Nice and superb story. Highly appreciated your involvement to make this documentary video. Srilanka has remarkable railway line and environment which is all the way upto Badulla(end of mail line). Hope to see you again in 🇱🇰 . Pls come and enjoy. Because several locomotives and DMUs are replaced with new one. Local Railway fan from Srilanka

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you Hasitha, thank you for the comment and glad you enjoyed the visit. I did ride all the way to Badula, hopefully sometime I will have the time to edit more video. I hope to be back soon when the whole Covid situation is finally over!

[@dilantha2003]

Awesome video - I keep coming back to watch as it reminds me of my childhood days . Any chance we can see the other parts soon?

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you! I would like to say yes, but unfortunately I don't have so much time for such projects. This was by far the most complex video project I have done and don't know if I can produce the rest of the series to the same standard.

[@mominsaad7952]

I love visit the Sri 🇱🇰

[@asirimudalige931]

Very good video.my home town is Kandy.

[@thayakarthi3055]

incredible.

[@royreynolds108]

I is interesting seeing knuckle couplings used with buffers. Looks like they also have the draw loop couplings.

[@nikosjk1]

Yes most stock still is compatible with both, some really old equipment like the M2 Class locos (EMD G12s) still only have the manual loop couplers.

[@NatarajanC12119]

Wonderful work. Eagerly waiting for part 2 now. Any photography permit required to shoot in Sri Lanka ?

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you! Did not encounter any difficulties photographing on the upcountry lines, a few on the Northern lines. All permission was obtained locally.

[@NevinThompson]

@@nikosjk1 is there a part 2?

[@AvinashReports]

Lovely

[@sergioluizrodriguez8264]

estupenda reportagem e video. estou no rio de janeiro- brasil assistindo este vdeo. parabens?

[@nanba25]

EXCELLENT ! This is a remarkable video about railways and the country I visited in the late 70s. Top quality images and sound (how do you avoid wind effect in the microphone, when the camera is outside the coach ?) Captions as needed, voice over commentaries just fine… An exemple for this kind of video

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you! Was there still steam running on your visit in the 70s? I use an external mic with one of those fuzzy windsocks, it makes a massive difference in sound quality. When at speed sometimes I mount the microphone backwards which helps further lessen the windnoise.

[@MGRail]

Best creation

[@ceylontrains]

This is Awsome😍😍

[@nikosjk1]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video, I enjoyed my time in your beautiful country.

[@santoshdubey2393]

Very nice

[@janithchamara5496]

Wow😍😍

[@lasitha1991]

Awsome!

[@TrainServices]

Great...

[@arsalankhan5116]

Very nice srilankan railway 💝🇵🇰

[@froggleggers1805]

Wow!

[@gederusdi]

Dear Sir, I would like to know how much did you spend on accomm,travel,and food .What was the total for one month .Your video is good and systematic.Regards Irfaan ,Cape Town...

[@RailPreserver2K]

Is it a preserved line or active revenue passenger also I love how far your channel has come since the Athens line over 10 years back

[@nikosjk1]

Its a fully functional rail system. and thanks, I'm trying to bring the channel back to life after years of not using it.

[@RailPreserver2K]

RailScapes - Trains & Travel your doing a great job and I say keep at it also I have been railfanning mist of the area you filmed at like at the community council on aging for example

[@Tuxbotix]

All are active and sometimes they do/ used to do a tour with steam locos (I haven't tried). Even the big maintenance/ repair cranes to lift locomotives are from British era powered by steam!

[@geoffreyswan7866]

That national railway museum is a gem of a place to visit and see the ancient rolling stock long retired I did not see any steam trains there though I wonder if any are still in other yards in Sri Lanka "......"If you are train buff this is a must visit place to see the history of early SL rail Check on the dates it is open though Religious and full moon days it is not open to the public

[@nikosjk1]

There are a handful of steam locos that have been restored to operating condition and are used occasionally on specials or photo charters. There are several more that are dumped at the shed in Colombo along with all kinds of other ancient stock. Hope after languishing this long they can be saved.

[@xavqnesh420]

Nice content bro, Does Sri Lankan railways have track ballast?

[@lakshitharathnayake6893]

Thank..❤️❤️

[@yousufgee4541]

super video

[@yousufgee4541]

Good Traveling

[@vdlfernando01]

Where's the part 2?? Eargerly waiting for it

[@priyanbuddika8730]

Bro this is marvelous vedio.this vedio deserve more views than current number of views. I think becoz of your thumbnail.please change the thumbnail.anyway what happened to the second part?

[@ravinduliyanaarachchi8827]

Hi! Do you have a part 2 as well?

[@balasubramaniyamramanan3667]

DEAR SIR. I AM VERY BIG RAIL FAN. I REALLY ENJOYED THIS VIDEO. VERY NICE VIDEO DOCUMENTARY. SPECIALLY I SAW THE TURNTABLE VIDEO. SIR DO U HAVE MORE TURNTABLE VIDEOS OF SRI LANKA RAILWAYS. THANKS FOR THIS WONDERFUL DOCUMENTARY. SIR WITH YOUR KIND PERMISSION COULD I PUT THIS VIDEO TO MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT.

[@nikosjk1]

Hello, glad enjoyed the video! Yes I have some more video of the turntable at Maho but not as good as this. Please feel free to share the link to facebook.

[@Direckszz]

Where is the Part II? I'm eagerly expecting the Part II

[@aslamshaikh1451]

Felt like I was in in southern India for a moment. If only proper investment is done I guess railways would be in good shape.

[@nikosjk1]

I never got to see south India in meter gauge days but I imagine it wouldve been something like this.

[@lakshminarayaman6721]

Shekar chennai 😍😍😍👍👍👍🙌

[@balasubramaniyamramanan3667]

SIR HAVE YOU GOT THE PART 2 DOCUMENTARY OF SRI LANKA RAILWAYS

[@nikosjk1]

I hope to publish it soon but these videos are very time consuming to produce.

[@HaleefI]

Wonderful work done! I'd like to know how did you find out that the M1 locomotive is to be put back into running condition? I'd like to find out if it's true!😊

[@nikosjk1]

I heard it on one of the Sri Lankan Railfan groups, I hope they can but may be very difficult to find parts, the engine type is not even used in Britain anymore.

[@HaleefI]

RailScapes - Trains & Travel I highly doubt that they'll ever repair this. As you said, Brush traction does not want to bring back these old locomotives since they are of no more in our Sri Lankan Railway and also due to non availability of parts of the Mirlees engine of the M1.

[@nikosjk1]

Yes its probably just a dream, maybe could be brought back to life with a different engine. It is interesting it remains on active tracks versus the rest of the equipment which has been put on display tracks.

[@HaleefI]

RailScapes - Trains & Travel true! Yes this is one out of three surviving. The other two are at Ratmalana workshops and they both are nothing like this, but just hanging on in pieces that may fall off soon. But I think they both are due for scrapping (or have been scrapped I guess). Anyways, good on with the video! Cheers, and hope to see more of Sri Lanka..

[@Direckszz]

@@nikosjk1 Expecting the Part II

[@daniila.7545]

Люди выглядят приятно-- нет бородатых ,нет ожирения, и т. п.

[@mohamedhanehar3842]

yes semaphore system

[@dissanperera7537]

Lakawe railways dekkama guka hithenawa neda? Ship nethi harbour Guwan yana nethi Air port Ape duppath minissu yana me sevaya gena duke bea

[@meyoanseneviratne5356]

Hey! Where is the "Part 2"?!

[@sayelpaul8519]

Dude you missed so much of India. Whenever Tourists visit India..they visit Delhi, Mumbai and southern India along the western coast as you did. There's a beautiful city called Kolkata in the eastern state of India called West Bengal...it's the cultural capital of India. It represents the culture and the Indian history. How did you miss it???Then there are the North Eastern States of India..nature has poured all her beauty in these states. It's a different experience all together. India is not all about Delhi, Rajasthan and Mumbai.

[@nikosjk1]

Every Indian thinks their part of the country is the greatest.....get off your soapbox. Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai were infact almost entirely to visit my relatives. I had a very specific itinerary which showed me plenty of the real India, the vast majority of which few tourists ever see.

[@sanjeewanishantha4274]

visit again .

[@imranzahra0724]

Its been 4 Years released part 01! where is the part 2 ?????

[@Eklasse-dm2hv]

really appreciated but the engine of the train changed several times several times

[@nikosjk1]

Yes, this was filmed over the course of 3 weeks.

[@nirmalrajakaruna5789]

🤟🤟

[@joelferreirajoel]

Parece o vila inhomirim aqui no Rio de Janeiro Brasil

[@benedictdesilva6677]

31:18 Did anyone notice that the station master looks remarkably like the 44th president of the United States?

[@jzpatelut]

I LOVE MY COUNTRY INDIA THE BEST IN THE WORLD JITEN PATEL GUJARAT INDIA jzpatelut..

[@fanta6789]

How the hell is just 1 guy able to turn the train around!! Please explain!! Any why is no one talking about it. 🤷‍♂️

[@darshaniwathsala7468]

What is this train name

[@theraildynasty_]

Name of the bridge at 43:11 please!

[@oshanigamage6645]

Devil's Bridge in Peradeniya, also known as '"Yakka Palama" in sinhala which translates to devils bridge.

[@theraildynasty_]

@@oshanigamage6645 :O

[@janithchamara5496]

Part 2 ..??? 🙄

[@sl-mean-while]

Owa drive karanna berida apata

[@universe12e]

You mentioned that INDIA modernized its railway system where as sri Lanka didn't.so u mean modernization is wrong.sri lanka would have done the same if it has good investment and the country size is like India

[@prabakaranr3833]

To

[@edisonplato5121]

👉🕴👌👍💯 ❤🚌

[@prabaprasath2981]

Mr Edward Birmingham European countries Central raiyalway low map is can OK