Grand past, future uncertain

All set to set off from Ghum station, the highest in India. 

Place: GHUM

One of the most iconic symbols of Indian railways, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway may be a World Heritage project, local politics has ensured that has come to at its worst ever.

The train / route has played such an important role in popular culture, especially at a time when Bengal and Calcutta were the centre of Indian elite. For well over a century, it has delighted generations of tourists as entire families would take the train to the matchingly beautiful destination of Darjeeling.

When it was listed by UNESCO in 1999, it became only the second railway to get that honour, though it has since been joined by two more routes in India alone.

The track passes through picturesque little towns, and from almost
within touching distance of houses! 

The 86-km route was commissioned in 1881, and has since been modified a number of times, usually to better align to the hill gradients, as it rises from 100 m above sea  level to 2,200 through a spectacularly beautiful countryside - starting with verdant forests of Sukna, meandering through low hills at first and then increasingly higher mountain towns. The towns it passes are lovely as well, with house balconies often adorned with flowers growing in polythene bags! The tea gardens, uniformly arranged, with narrow passages and colourful tea plucking ladies, add their own charm.

The steam engines chug along for the better part of the journey along Hill Cart Road, which connects Shiliguri to Darjeeling. As a child, my mother, who grew up in the tea estates of the region, remembers running along the train, and getting on and off at will, so slowly did it move in parts. The route is steep, and in parts the train goes through loops, of which the Batasia is most famous. There are even parts where it reverses to move forward. For many parts, it almost seems to pass through people's houses, and travelling on it can give the passenger a first look at hill homes of the region, up close.

Due to damages to the rail track, the Darjeeling
Himalayan railway currently operates only from
Kurseong to Darjeeling

There are many small stations, though Kurseong is the major halting station. Quaint names such as Ghum and Sonada are like dream towns, where the townspeople, used to stares from passengers, go about their lives without noticing the train much.

Today the Gorkhaland dispute has meant that most of the route is in disarray. The train only runs from Kurseong to Darjeeling as unrepaired tracks means the route upto Kurseong is no longer operational. The carriages require upkeep, and there are comparatively few tourists as people are unwilling to come to a politically disturbed area. However it continues to draw some tourists and railway enthusiasts. And despite the hard times, hardly any visitor goes away without leaving a part of his heart behind to this Himalayan heritage.