NEW RAILROAD

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2236, 17 November 1928, Page 3

NEW RAILROAD

OPENS INDIAN COTTON CROP. One of the wealthiest cotton areas in the world is said by the papers of Madras and Calcutta to have been opened by the Dindigul-Pollachi' railway, in the presidency of South India. Although less than 150 miles in length, it links the western with the eastern coast of the peninsula and shortens the journey from Calicut to Dhanuri'.kodi, the jumping-off place for Ceylon, by 500 miles. Hitherto the! traffic in the Madras presidency has been much hampered by lack of any trans-peninsular line across this cotton area,, which contains 22,500 square miles. Pollachi, the western terminal of the new line, is on a branch of the trans-peninsular Shoranur-Madras railway; Dindigul, the eastern terminal, is its complement on the Madura-Pondicherry system.

Until the present time Pollachi's cotton market, the ilargest weekly exchange in India, has been entirely fed by country carts, some of them coming from great distances. It has also been a great cattle mart, which the railway is expected measurably to increase.

Apart from aiding the distribution of cotton and cattlej, the new line is expected to take pilgrims to the great shrine at Palni, midway between Dindigul and Pollachi. There is a continuous stream of devotees along the road between Palghaut and Palni, most of whom make the pilgrimage under some particular vow, either of silence of fasting. On this road have been observed the most extreme types of self-immolation: a man with his tongue protruding between his lips, and kept in that position with a skewer through it, will trudge sixty or seventy miles to gain the merit such a visit to Palni confers. Another will carry a kavidi, or pteir of ornamental baskets, slung on a pole across his shoulders; in them will be offerings of milk and rice, said to be kept at the boiling point all through the long march.