BENGALURU: A golden-hued bust of former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam installed beside the railway tracks at the platform six side of the Yesvantpur railway station has become the cynosure of all eyes as well as an inspiration for railway employees. It was unveiled on Monday following 45 days of painstaking work on 800 kilograms of scrap by engineers of the mechanical department of the Yesvantpur Coaching Depot.
It was made public on the Twitter handle of the Coaching depot on Tuesday evening with the words, “a creative tribute to the Missile Man” and instantly generated enthusiastic responses.
Erected on a specially created platform near the tracks, the enormous bust of the aerospace scientist is 7.8 feet high and can be viewed by passengers from trains departing from Yesvantpur. The Depot, located near the Tumakuru side of the station, maintains an average of 200 coaches on a daily basis, including the new Vistadome coaches and those of Duronto and Sampark Kranti trains.
Vikas Gurwani, Senior Coaching Depot officer, told The New Indian Express, “The bust of Dr Kalam was welded by joining nuts, bolts, metallic rope and Damper (metallic objects used in the suspension of coaches) brought from Mysuru Workshop as well as our coaching depot. A clay model was first made and a Plastic of Paris mould generated. The mould was used as a base.”
He credits Senior Section Engineers at the depot, C P Sridhar and Srinivas Raju as the brains behind the showpiece.
“Our Depot, over two decades old, has a history of churning waste into art in the past too and has already put in place the Kempe Gowda Heritage Garden, a statue of Swami Vivekananda, a 3D model of the `Make In India’ Lion and that of Three Muskeeteers that stresses on the importance of safety using three railway engineers. These are an offshoot of the Japanese 5S workplace philosophy that we follow here and aim to create a clean and visually appealing work environment to boost the morale of staff,” Gurwani said.
The bust has already generated much interest among passengers and staff, he added.