So You Can Now Buy An Old Indian Railway Coach - And Turn It Into Whatever You Want

If there is anything Indians collectively romanticize, it’s Indian railways. Movies, songs, poetry and so much of Indian life is directly inspired by a train journey. And if you are true connoisseur of trains like Sheldon Cooper, you might want to go to Lucknow as they are auctioning actual trains.

There are six trains that are currently up for grabs in Lucknow. “At least six metre-gauge trains have been pulled out of operations by the Lucknow division of the North Eastern Railway (NER) due to gauge conversion of the Aishbagh-Mailani section. These rakes (trains) would be auctioned by railways as soon as a committee declares them ‘condemned,” reported the Times of India. If no other railway division demands them, an auction for the public will be held.

“The plan is to first ask each division of railways if they have any need of the metre gauge coaches. Western Railway might be in need of a few for their metre gauge section. The next procedure is to get the coaches checked by coach manufacturing units, if they can recycle any parts. If all these measures don’t succeed, North Eastern Railway would eventually auction them as scrap.

Also, the gradual phasing out of currently operation ICF coaches that are fitted to normal passenger and a few express trains would also result in ‘condemned’ coaches,” reported Business Insider. We suggest you reach them before a scrap dealer does.

Each passenger coach weighs up to 7 tonnes and will be sold at the current price of scrap iron. Lucknow had an auction of trains 30 years ago and the last coach of the metre gauge track to be auctioned sold at INR 1,10,000 as reported by TOI. If you have ever dreamed of opening a restaurant, a library, store, hotel or just a cozy space to chill, now is the moment to buy a railway coach and make them come true.A cozy home in a train