It took everyone by surprise when this train with the tricolour painted on it chugged into Bangalore Cantonment railway station. It was the Azadi Express, a photographic exhibition of the independence struggle on wheels which is going around the country to commemorate the 150th year of the First War of Independence.

This venture by the ministry of information and broadcasting in association with the railways and culture ministries has been drawing crowds ever since it rolled into Bangalore on Wednesday. The train came to Bangalore from the coastal Karnataka town of Mangalore, and will leave for Mysore on January 28.

Azadi Express was flagged off in New Delhi in September 2007 and had chugged along to Gandhiji's birthplace, Porbandar, on October 2 the same year.

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