22/10/2025
Historic Partnership, Auroville Foundation & Southern Railway Join Forces for Sustainable Mobility.
We're thrilled to announce a ground-breaking collaboration between Auroville Foundation and Southern Railway (Tiruchirappalli Division) that brings two pioneering sustainable mobility projects to life.
Two Revolutionary Projects:
Toy Train in Kindergarten Zone - A child-scale toy train system spanning a 595-meter route through the Kindergarten Zone, featuring 12 carriage units. Each coach is designed with inspiration from The Mother's symbolic forms and colours, embodying qualities such as aspiration, joy, and harmony. This provides safe, engaging, low-speed mobility for young residents while stimulating their sense of wonder and independence.
Crown Tramway - An electric/solar-powered tramway encircling the central Crown zone. Phase 1 covers 2.355 km of the full 4.4 km Crown ring. This low-speed transit system will continuously circulate around the Crown, connecting parks, public spaces, service nodes, and community hubs, offering quiet, non-polluting, mass-community mobility.
Senior officials recently conducted an extensive site visit including Dr. G. Seetharaman (OSD, Auroville Foundation), Dr. Venugopal (Senior Consultant), and Shri Balak Ram Negi (Divisional Railway Manager, Trichy Division). The team inspected proposed tram installation sites and the toy train location, then traversed Crown Road to evaluate the tramway route. The visit concluded with meditation at the iconic Matrimandir, harmonizing infrastructure development with spiritual consciousness.
Dr. Jayanti S. Ravi IAS, Secretary of Auroville Foundation and Additional Chief Secretary of Gujarat State, held a virtual consultation strongly advocating for Indian Railways' support and expedited implementation.
These projects embody The Mother's 1965 vision of slow, silent, service-oriented electric vehicles (maximum speed ~15 km/h) and represent a demonstration model for integrated, gentle-mobility systems in India. This is where movement becomes gentle, artistic, and humanizing, woven into the fabric of community life.
Ministry of Railways, Government of India
Auroville Foundation