NEW DELHI: In a recent development the railway ministry and Google mutually launched ‘Rail heritage digitization project’. The project is a first of its kind to showcase country’s rail heritage to national and international spectators through an online story-telling platform.
Having a history of more than 165 years of Indian railways and having a rich heritage which includes the Imperial and the princely railways, this will be prominent move by the ministry of Railways towards showcasing country’s rail heritage to the global audience.
“Digitization of rail heritage provides an opportunity to contextualize artifact and other heritage assets with the stories thus becoming more meaningful to next generation. Digital heritage also removes the bottleneck of being physically there and thus providing universal access to the large repository of knowledge.” –Railway Ministry in a release
Minister of Railways and Coal, Piyush Goyal launched the project through video-conferencing.
“Being a 165-year-old organization, the Railways has a lot of material which we need to preserve and leave behind for posterity.” –Piyush Goyal, Railway Minister
“At the outset, let me congratulate the Indian Railways and the Google Arts and Culture Association for this wonderful initiative, which has taken over two years of hard work, research, inquiry, and execution. It is often said that civilization is built over millennia by countless generations, with each generation leaving its footprints in the sands of time. A culture must reserve these footprints to remember what it was and where it came from. Whenever we look at the evolution of the transport system in India, all these rich traditions, history and culture will play an important role in understanding how the Indian Railway has evolved.” –Piyush Goyal