If you go around some of the monuments scattered across India under the government' control, they are not kept clean and tidy, part of the reason is visitors come there only for fun and gossip loaded with lots of eatables and leave the place without caring to put them in the dustbin kept at some corners there. There are thousands of unprotected monuments across India that need serious attention. from the government. Besides .the piles of rubbish scattered all round, at some sites where the repair work had been completed, ugly mounds of undisposed rubble are left behind there. In some places periodic cleaning is poorly done. without any care. Such sites are an eyesore to the new visitors. If this is the state of the most popular of our monuments, it is difficult to visualize the mess at the lesser known ones. The heritage site of a railway shed at the Vadadora railway station specially built for the princely state ruler of Baroda to keep his royal coach, is a glaring example.
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| railway shed for the royal coach, Vadadora station.historyofvadodara |
Above image: At the end of the platform was built a shed with brick walls, 28 windows, a triangular closed roof to park the saloon. Now closed from the ends, the historic structure is slowly disintegration on account of official neglect and apathy...................
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| Baroda ruler Gaekwad III.mintageworld.com |
In the Vadadora railway station, Gujarat there lies in a quiet corner an important heritage site uncared for and left to decay. A simple but historical building with no periodic repair work has been ravaged by vagaries of time and weather. More disgusting is the fact that place is being abused by the anti-social people- a hangout for hobos, gamblers and panhandlers.
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| Maharajah Gaekward's royal coachhistory of vadadora in . |
Above image: Broad-Gauge Royal Saloon/ bogie with living, dinning & bedroom facilities. Custom made for Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III. A self-contained saloon it had Conference Room, Kitchen, Bed-room, toilet like functionalities. The salon was provided with had gold-plated ceilings, luxurious interiors, wardrobes and sofas, chairs and tables for the comfort..............................
The building is a long linear shed meant to keep the ''Royal Railway Coaches'' of Maharajah Sayajirao Gaekwad III (11 March 1863 – 6 February 1939), who used to travel in grand style worthy of his status to Bombay and elsewhere in his luxurious custom made saloon with a separate coach for his servants. Quite popular, he not only maintained a good rapport with the British, but also evinced keen interest in improving civil works for the benefit of people. A large narrow gauge railway - Gaekwad's Baroda State Railway net work, was inaugurated in 1862 . Later it was expanded further with Dabhoi at its focal point, a network that still is the largest narrow gauge railway network in the world. In 1892 he introduced a useful potable water supply scheme for Baroda which is still in use.
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| Vadadora, Gujarat. location map. weather-forecast.com |
The royal coaches once used by the Baroda ruler are on display at the National railway Museum, New Delhi. This legacy of the erstwhile Maharajah is a living testimony to his luxurious and royal life which the former rulers of India were accustomed to. Apart, it brings to light the ruler's close association with the colonial rulers of the past era. After India's independence in August 1947, with the merger of princely kingdoms with the Indian Union, the ex-rulers opulent style of living had begun to decline and they had to be content with a small yearly dole to keep up their royal life with limited retinue.
Located between Pandya bridge and platform 7 of Vadadora station, as of to day, this royal shed has not been repaired and restored to keep up its past glory. Way back in 2009 and 2010, responding to heritage lovers of Baroda, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) and city-based heritage trust had drawn a draft to go ahead with a heritage museum project in that site with five galleries on the upper and ground levels. The budget was Rs.3crore with one crore from the MP's fund. The idea was to display the history of the city and its connection with Cricket, the Gaekwadi, etc. There was a proposal to shift several items to this site from the local museum. The row over the possession of the building for restoration work that began in 2015 put a hold on the project, and so far it remains unsolved.
The long red-bricked building (more than 116 years old?) is pierced by arched windows at regular interval all around and are supported by stone sills perched on stone brackets. The building is showing cracks and exposed brickwork in many places. The double-patched and hipped roof is supported by iron stresses. The wooden battens in the inner part of the roof are used to hide purlins that support terracotta tiles. The advantage of this design is it will drain out the water quickly falling on the roof. The gentle sloping has an additional advantage; in the roof the grills show rusting.
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| Pitced roof. Pinrest.com |
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| hiproof .britannica.com |
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| fire at the railway shed, Vadadora. imesofindia.indiatimes.com |
This railway heritage shed that was built to keep the local ex-Maharajah's luxury private railway coach is a symbol of royalty and steps must be taken soon to preserve it for the posterity.
http://wikimapia.org/34975619/Railway-Saloon-Shed
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