1980-1-29-0074-Sonada
New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling, 29 Jan 1980
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One of the first railroad books I got was "By Rail to the Ends of the Earth" by British author Kenneth Westcott-Jones. I'm sure someone found it on a discount table somewhere, and thought of the 8 or 10 year old kid who likes trains, and that is how I wound up with a book about more or less obscure railway rides in various parts of the world.
One of the lines described in the book is the Darjeeling-Himalayan, the 2 foot gauge route that climbs the foothills of the Himalayas to the tea growing hub and hill station Darjeeling. It is a railroad unlike anything else I've ridden, with curves that look like a Lionel set under a Christmas tree and some pretty steep grades that were surmounted in 1980 by a fleet of elderly Class B 0-4-0T locomotives.
We rode an overnight train from Calcutta Sealdah station to New Jalpaiguri, where the broad gauge interchanges with the 2 foot line. The original interchange was at Siliguri, and a meter gauge line still met the 2 foot there, but after the 1947 partition of India, the main junction was changed to New Jalpaiguri, which is only a few miles from the Bangladesh border.
The area required a special permit to visit in 1980 due to some tensions associated with Inida having annexed Sikkim to the north of Darjeeling in 1975 and we had to go through a security check. I was the last in line and the 0710 train 1D departed as I was still going through security, taking the other 4 members of our group with it.
I waited around for two hours, getting some breakfast, until train 3D left at 0910, with several other young western tourists and myself in the 1st class compartiment. We overtook a mixed train at Sukna before the climb began and then headed into the mountains.
We had a water stop, during which the fire was cleaned, at Rangtong and as we left there, the mixed train caught up to us. A bit further up the mountain, we met a downhill train, after going around the first of several loops the line used to gain height.
We must have been eating lunch at Tindharia, which the train was scheduled to reach at 1215, as I did not take any photos of the engine swap that took place at the location of the railway's shed. Perhaps it was raining as well. Tindharia clings to the side of a steep mountain and the shop is located on a promontory that had its top flattened to build the shed.
As the afternoon progressed, we made our way up to Kurseong, probably the biggest community in the hills before Darjeeling. There was a turntable at Kurseong, but I'm not sure what it was used for other than maybe MOW equipment as the engines all ran with their cabs facing New Jalpaiguri.
We must have had some bad coal as the train stopped several times for the crew to clean the fire. At one stop, the driver also used a wrench on the valve gear, adjusting something. You probably can't do that on an ES44AC!
The light was failing by the time we got to Ghum summit, about 7400 feet, a little over 400 feet higher than Tunnel 41 on Donner Pass, and we dropped down to Darjeeling after dark, where my friends were waiting at the station to go to our hotel.
A long time railfan dream of mine had come true, I'd ridden the "Himalayan Toy Train"!
1980-1-29-0074-Sonada
New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling, 29 Jan 1980
·
One of the first railroad books I got was "By Rail to the Ends of the Earth" by British author Kenneth Westcott-Jones. I'm sure someone found it on a discount table somewhere, and thought of the 8 or 10 year old kid who likes trains, and that is how I wound up with a book about more or less obscure railway rides in various parts of the world.
One of the lines described in the book is the Darjeeling-Himalayan, the 2 foot gauge route that climbs the foothills of the Himalayas to the tea growing hub and hill station Darjeeling. It is a railroad unlike anything else I've ridden, with curves that look like a Lionel set under a Christmas tree and some pretty steep grades that were surmounted in 1980 by a fleet of elderly Class B 0-4-0T locomotives.
We rode an overnight train from Calcutta Sealdah station to New Jalpaiguri, where the broad gauge interchanges with the 2 foot line. The original interchange was at Siliguri, and a meter gauge line still met the 2 foot there, but after the 1947 partition of India, the main junction was changed to New Jalpaiguri, which is only a few miles from the Bangladesh border.
The area required a special permit to visit in 1980 due to some tensions associated with Inida having annexed Sikkim to the north of Darjeeling in 1975 and we had to go through a security check. I was the last in line and the 0710 train 1D departed as I was still going through security, taking the other 4 members of our group with it.
I waited around for two hours, getting some breakfast, until train 3D left at 0910, with several other young western tourists and myself in the 1st class compartiment. We overtook a mixed train at Sukna before the climb began and then headed into the mountains.
We had a water stop, during which the fire was cleaned, at Rangtong and as we left there, the mixed train caught up to us. A bit further up the mountain, we met a downhill train, after going around the first of several loops the line used to gain height.
We must have been eating lunch at Tindharia, which the train was scheduled to reach at 1215, as I did not take any photos of the engine swap that took place at the location of the railway's shed. Perhaps it was raining as well. Tindharia clings to the side of a steep mountain and the shop is located on a promontory that had its top flattened to build the shed.
As the afternoon progressed, we made our way up to Kurseong, probably the biggest community in the hills before Darjeeling. There was a turntable at Kurseong, but I'm not sure what it was used for other than maybe MOW equipment as the engines all ran with their cabs facing New Jalpaiguri.
We must have had some bad coal as the train stopped several times for the crew to clean the fire. At one stop, the driver also used a wrench on the valve gear, adjusting something. You probably can't do that on an ES44AC!
The light was failing by the time we got to Ghum summit, about 7400 feet, a little over 400 feet higher than Tunnel 41 on Donner Pass, and we dropped down to Darjeeling after dark, where my friends were waiting at the station to go to our hotel.
A long time railfan dream of mine had come true, I'd ridden the "Himalayan Toy Train"!