Organizers take guests on tour to the Nigerian Railway Corporation

dayo adesanya

May 1, 2017 11:48 AM

The tour travelled through time to NRC to evoke a sense of nostalgia and explore the historical importance of this building.

Open House Lagos tour, an event organised to understand the value of a well-designed built environment by exploring Lagos architectural history.

The tour, categorised into seven sections (resilience of art, history of resilience, green response, insta tour, visual resilience) the renaissance, kick-started on Saturday, April 29, 2017.

The history of resilience tour, which involved travelling through time to sites that evoke a sense of nostalgia and explore the historical importance of buildings saw us through a visit to Nigeria Railway Corporation, Ebute Metta, Lagos.

The first stop of the trip was at the head office, Nigeria Railway Corporation where the crew met the PR Director, Mr Akinwoye, who showed us round the building.

The building which was erected way back in 1900 is 117 year old is referred as the first Aso rock of Nigeria. NRC houses the first office of Lord Lugard and the first Central Bank of Nigeria.

In the building was the core communication centre of the railway, where the trackers, signals and communication of each train lies.

The drawing room in this building births all the railway in Nigeria which is about 3,555km. There, all kinds of drawings, such as drawing of buildings, stations and tracks as far back as 1920s and 1930s were stored.

Moving on to the locomotive shed and workshop where Engineer Kadiri took us round to see a good number of locomotives engines, spare parts and other instruments that were used in building and maintaining parts of the locomotives. According to him, "each loco is gender sensitive and a complete representation of a human being."

The railway erection workshop, where the locomotives were assembled had overhead cranes to move loads into the workshop. Each locomotive was designated by a specific number to identify which country it came from.

Part of the tour included a trip to Jaekel house, commissioned as legacy Nigeria railway mini museum by Mazi J.C Nwakwo (NRC MD) in 2008.

Jaekel house was established in 1898 and named after the supreme commander Nigeria railway, Francis Jaekel.

A few scenes of October 1 and Simi, the artist latest video were shot in Jaekel's house and Ilukwe house, a neighbouring compound.

Thanks to Open House Lagos, the history of Nigeria Railway Corporation was explored to a large extent.

dayo adesanya