Yarl Devi : The train of HOPE

The media of the last week was full of the launch of the Peace Train to Vavuniya on the 20th of May. Looking back at the protracted armed conflict in this country, the `moments of peace` or more accurately, the `the moments when war is absent` have been few and far between.

The Yarl Devi intercity express train was the train which connected the Jaffna peninsula with the rest of the country. And she had two sisters one moving to southern sriklanka and the other moving to hill country. This is the first advertisement published by the Srilanka Railway department is the following.



Last train moved to the jafna peninsula in 1987 and never returned until it was shipped to Colombo when the armed forces took control of the jaffna pennisula in 1996. There after the train opperated only to vavniya.