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  “H.M.Cy.S. RANGALLA” – By Des Kelly An overnight train from Colombo Fort to Badulla, stopping at Diyatalawa Station, one train-ride that I will never forget. Along with “my batch” of Navy Recruits, numbering about forty, as I recall, in the old 3rd Class Railway carriages, perspiring freely, at Colombo, set for what could truly be called a refreshing retreat to Diyatalawa, steadily getting cooler, as we headed up the mountain-climb (an 8 hour journey, stopping at each Station-ride), to arrive at the (empty) C.G,R. Station in the hills, at about 6 am. It was decidedly cooler in Ditatalawa, and there were two R.Cy.N. trucks waiting to pick us up and “hurtle”(is the word for it), to our “Training-Camp” H.M.Cy.S. Rangalla, right in the heart of Diyatalawa Town.       Diyatalwa, as I remember it, was a very pretty little Town, set in the rolling, beautiful hills of Ceylon (at ...