The Darjeeling Himalaya Railroad

There is a rail link from New Jalpaiguri Rail Station to Darjeeling. It is a small guage railway with much smaller cars. I had read something about it on the internet, but when I asked Rajesh about it in Kolkata, he told me that it was often broken and that I shouldn't really think about trying to go to Darjeeling that way. And indeed, when I was heading up the mountain to Darjeeling, I saw no train on the tracks, that ran right beside the road.

However, when I got to Darjeeling, I found out that the train did indeed still run, although it didn't go all the way down the mountain. It only went as far as Kurseong. This was because of a landslide sometime in the past year that had cut the line off. I didn't find this out until I was leaving Darjeeling though, so I thought that if I came back to the town, I would definitely take a ride. Now here I was back in Darjeeling and I had my chance. So on the second day of my return to Darjeeling, I headed to the train station to purchase a ticket on what they call the toy train. It's no toy, but it's definitely not a big train like you would normally think of.

After I bought my ticket I headed back up the hill to my hotel. I passed a shopping center and popped in to see what it would cost to get a better camera. Purely by chance, there was an exhibition about the Darjeeling Himalaya Railway (DHR). It explained the railway itself, as well as the reasons that it had been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It was actually a very good exhibition with old photos and explanations that really shed light on the development of the dirt track up to the old hill station of Darjeeling and how it eventually was turned into a rail link, and then the decline of that rail link's importance as road transportation became more important. But this exhibition was only up for a couple of weeks. It would be a great idea if they could put it up permanently somewhere. But the people who were responsible for putting it up told me it was unlikely as the government had gotten the railway listed and then had proceeded to tear things down and rebuild them (which is forbidden by the World Heritage List, unless things are restored exactly and using the same methods and materials used in the original construction), only to allow the new facilities to deteriorate with no areas for exhibitions or anything like that.

In any case, the exhibition told how the DHR was the first rail link that ran up the side of the mountain. It also explained the technical and engineering genius used in bringing it about. The route began as a dirt track that linked the hill station of Darjeeling with the lower centers. Whatever it started out as, the hill station became known for tea and the tea began to find a market and a demand. In the initial stages, the dirt track down the mountain served the needs of transportation well enough, eventually requiring an upgrade so that a higher volume of traffic and wheeled vehicles could make the trip. But over time, the demand for Darjeeling tea outstripped the capacity of the dirt track and a new solution was needed. There were still no cars or trucks; the natural solution that came to mind was some kind of rail link. However, at first blush that seemed to be an impossible dream to achieve. Railways are great on flat or relatively flat terrain. The metal wheels grip metal tracks well enough to get enough traction to propel the train from destination to destination. But as the grade goes up, the ability of the wheels to gain enough traction on the tracks is compromised to a greater and greater degree. With a steep enough grade, the wheels cannot grip and the train is unable to climb. It just slips on the tracks and goes nowhere. Going up the side of a mountain seemed to provide challenges too great to allow a rail link to be built. But the ingenuity of mankind is not to be blocked so easily. The engineers got to looking at the route and figuring out how to lower the grade of the ascent/descent to levels that the trains could handle. They came up with two ingenious solutions.

The first was the switchback. Instead of heading more or less straight up the mountain, the rail track would zigzag up the mountain at a manageable grade. The turns would be made at spots that had enough space to allow the train to negotiate the turn. This is essentially the set up for mountain roads today, although I don't know if the inspiration came from this first mountain railway.

The second innovation was the loop. In spots where there was not enough space to turn the train in a switchback, the engineers devised a loop where the train would essentially make a turn that would loop back over itself, but at a higher elevation (or lower, depending on which direction the train was headed), allowing the train to change elevation rapidly before continuing on its way through more manageable terrain. I had visited one of the loops in the DHR line on the morning of my visit to Tiger Hill. The stop after that was Batasia Loop, but at the time, the track was covered in goods for sale. There were 7 (maybe) such loops on the DHR. Some were destroyed by landslides and other factors over the years. There are currently only three left.

Using these ingenious tools, the engineers succeeded in getting a rail link up to Darjeeling, and it was able to handle the increase in traffic. Inevitably though, demand eventually rose to where the railway was no longer able to handle it all. In the meantime cars and trucks came along. The original dirt track, that had been turned into a rail line, was now modified again into a road capable of handling vehicular traffic. The railway tracks were left intact and the road shared the rail line. But the decline had set in and the railway declined in importance and usage and was faced with obsolescence. It would have disappeared entirely if some railroad enthusiasts hadn't decided to save it. They banded together and formed a society to get the DHR listed on the World Heritage List. When they succeeded, the railway was refurbished and turned into what is mainly a tourist attraction where tourists can ride the railway and get a taste of how it was way back when. So the railway continues today, albeit on a much smaller scale. And some people still do use it for transportation, even though there is only one train each way each day from Darjeeling to Kurseong (a distance of 31 kilometers). It remains to be seen whether the whole length of the rail line will be restored following the landslide damage. And there is a much shorter trip from Darjeeling to Ghoom (8 kms) that goes four or five times a day. But this is really just for tourists. (And the price reflects that.)

So on the third day of my second stay in Darjeeling, I went down to the Darjeeling Rail Station and got on the train for my trip.

It was quite a nice journey and did give some good views (although not amazing both because of the weather and because there are so many things along the way that interfere with the view, such buildings or power lines; I guess they haven't gotten to the part of the restoration yet where they absolutely cater to the tourist with a camera), and there were things along the way that were really cool.

At times we passed so close to buildings in the towns the railway goes through, it would have been possible to shake hands with people standing in their doorways as we went by. I had to be on guard against getting smacked in the head or the hand by something coming from behind me as I leaned myself out the door or window to take a photo. And the tracks weaved back and forth across the road the whole way down. When the train is running, it definitely has the right of way! It was a fantastic trip from Darjeeling to Kurseong, and I am glad I had the opportunity to check it out with a return to Darjeeling.