CHENNAI: The century-old Royapuram railway printing press, which had been operating with minimum staff, along with four other railway press located in Mumbai, Howrah, Secunderabad and Delhi, will now be permanently closed. On Tuesday, the railway board issued an order to close and dismantle all the five railway printing presses permanently.
A directive to this effect was issued in 2019, but the decision was postponed at the last minute, as a few presses were yet to complete the ticket printing duties. Listing out the closure procedure, the railway board said all the machines and other items should be disposed of in a manner which brings maximum revenue to the railways. The apex body of the railways also said the staff should be redeployed suitably, and the land should be utilised gainfully. It also directed the railway to take necessary steps to encourage a paperless ticketing system.
Official sources from the southern railway said the order is being studied and shutting down works will commence soon. “The press is being used for minimal work. The decision to demolish the building will be taken after receiving a report from the engineering department,” said an official.
The Royapuram printing press started operation in 1891 by printing cardboard tickets. However, with the transition to computerised paper tickets in the early 2000s and subsequent digitisation, the printing press has become obsolete and insignificant.
The printing of unreserved and reserved tickets, timetables, maps, and other stationery materials previously done by these presses will now be outsourced to printers authorised by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association (IBA), said the railways.
The printing machines for ticketing at the press have been in use since 1926 and have been printing rectangular tickets for more than 90 years. B Bharathiraja, a rail enthusiast in Vellore said, “Until recently, the cardboard tickets printed at the press were used at halt stations like Thirumullaivoyal and Putlur, as well as other stations that were not having a computerised printing system.
However, the computerised system has also recently been extended to halt stations.”