I visited Udagamandalam once in my life time in January 1985 when we were in Coimbatore. We went by bus and returned by train. Mettupalayam which is the starting point of the hill train was approximately 27 kms from VKV nagar, NGGO colony, Coimbatore - 22 where we were living then. It is 31 years since I left Coimbatore but still having memory of the train when returning from the hill station. Blue mountain express is the only train that is run for the benefit of people in the hill station from Madras. According to railinfo it is running since March 15, 1929, it is almost 16 days senior to GT express, if you consider GT's April 1, 1929 as really established date. In those days reaching mettupalayam from coimbatore was a bit difficult but now there is a mofussil bus stand in goundampalayam and...
more... also MEMU runs from coimbatore to mettupalayam. Coimbatore which was quite small and conservative then had joined the list of soon-to-be-big-city now. I remember seeing few films in a touring talkies in 1982 and now the scene changed completely and the city has PVR, Miraj and other few new ones which I am not familiar with. In those days we waited a month or two for new films to near our areas after first run in city center and now surprised to see new films releasing in more theaters like Madras ! In those days buses to other cities started from any of the 2 terminals in Gandhipuram but now it has terminus at ukkadam for kerala and pollachi bound bus, goundampalayam for ooty, mysore bound bus, gandhipuram continuing to serve for salem, erode, madras bound bus and singanallur serving bus to trichy, madurai, tirunelveli, etc. Many of you guys up north are familiar coimbatore only for sathguru but he is a very recent phenomenon, he established only in 1992. Coimbatore is famous for much more things, it is manchester of south india, lakshmi mills functions since 1910, and few other old mills also there, it has engineering industries, second largest IT industries in the state, poultry industry, jewellery industry, and 100s of other unmentioned industries. Coimbatore also has good schools and colleges. Coimbatore also had few cinema studios in those days. Samikannu Vincent of coimbatore is credited with showing film to Madras in 1905 after Edwards had shown few short silent films in 1897 in victoria public hall. He built first theater in coimbatore in 1914 which was called variety hall and later on delite. Coimbatore is famous for food and hotels also.
