chennai he could have jetted to any place in the state by commercial airline or a private chartered plane but muthuvel karunanidhi was probably the only tamil nadu chief minister who regularly travelled by train and southern railway would lay out the red carpet for himthe dmk patriarch and fivetime chief minister who passed away on tuesday evening at the age of 94 undertook his last such ride in may 2016 travelling by kamban express to his constituency thiruvarur from chennai egmore it was ahead of the assembly election when he retained his seatthat day he drove to the egmore station in his car and was taken to the special railway saloon around 10pm wheeled along as hundreds of senior dmk leaders and ordinary workers cheered he received a similar reception as the train rolled into thiruvarur railway station the next morningrailway saloons are specially designed coaches meant for the minister concerned and top officials they have highend furniture cosy beds a television set and a modern toilet in stark comparison to the facilities given to regular passengersearlier railway sources say his railway trips were mostly lowkey affairs irrespective of whether he was chief minister or not he karunanidhi would arrive by car that would be allowed directly on to platform 4 the only one where such a provision is available of chennai egmore station there would be a minimum number of party cadres present he has also travelled in the first class coupe on a few occasions said a railway official normally another official said whenever top railway officals travelled the saloon would be placed either at the end or in the front of the rake formation however for karunanidhi it was in the centre to ensure that he could comfortably enter and exit the official saidkarunanidhi regularly travelled by the pandian express cheran express or the rockfort express to travel to places like madurai coimbatore and trichy with the rockfort express being preferred for the ricebelt districts that it traversed comprised the dmks strongest areas politicallyin fact for the world classical tamil conference at coimbatore in 2010 karunanidhi managed to get a train from coimbatore to mannargudi passing through the ricebowl districts the train quite fittingly was titled semmozhi expressthis practice endeared him to many rail fans despite being a big leader karunanidhi used to travel in trains with common people for journeys inside tamil nadu this shows that he was a role model for leaders to connect with the people said arun pandian a rail fan from chennai