The route
The railway line basically follows Hill Cart Road which is partially the same as National Highway 55. Usually, the track is simply on the road side. In case of landslides both track and road might be affected. As long parts of the road are surrounded with buildings, the railway line often rather resembles urban tramway tracks than an overland line.
To warn residents and car drivers about the approaching train, engines are equipped with very loud horns that even drown horns of Indian trucks and buses. Trains horn almost without pause - therefore people with sensitive ears (especially foreigners from countries that are more quiet than India) should wear ear protection while riding the train.
Toy Train Cabin
Loops and Z-Reverses
One of the main difficulties faced by the DHR was the steepness of the climb. Features called Loops and Z-Reverses were designed as an integral part of the system at different points along the route to achieve a comfortable gradient for the stretches in between them. In a loop, the train is made to gain height by the track circling around and passing over itself by tracing the natural contours at the end of the spur of a hill. When the train moves forwards, reverses and then moves forward again, climbing a slope each time while doing so, it gains height along the side of the hill. This is called Z-Reverse.
Stations
New Jalpaiguri Junction ((NJP)
New Jalpaiguri is the railway station which was extended to the south in 1964 to meet the new broad gauge to Assam. Where the two met, New Jalpaiguri was created.
Siliguri Town Station
Siliguri Town was original southern terminus of the line.
Siliguri Junction
Siliguri Junction became a major station only when a new metre-gauge line was built to Assam in the early 1950s
Sukna Station
This station marks the change in the landscape from the flat plains to the wooded lower slopes of the mountains. The gradient of the railway changes dramatically.
Loop 1 (Now removed)
Loop No.1 was in the woods above Sukna. It was removed after flood damage in 1991. The site is now lost in the forest.
Rangtong station
A short distance above Rangtong there is a water tank. This was a better position for the tank than in the station, both in terms of water supply and distance between other water tanks.
Loop 2 (Now removed)
When Loop 2 was removed in 1942, again following flood damage, a new reverse, No.1, was added, creating the longest reverse run.
Reverse 1
Loop 3
Loop No.3 is at Chunbatti. This is now the lowest loop.
Reverse 2 & 3
Reverses No.2 & 3 are between Chunbatti and Tindharia.
Tindharia Station
This is a major station on the line as below the station is the workshops. There is also an office for the engineers and a large locomotive shed, all on a separate site.
Immediately above the station are three sidings; these were used to inspect the carriage while the locomotive was changed, before the train continued towards Darjeeling.
Loop 4
Agony Point is the name given to loop No.4. It comes from the shape of the loop which comes to an apex which is the tightest curve on the line.
Gayabari
Reverse 6
Reverse No.6 is the last reverse on the climb.
Mahanadi Station
Kurseong Station
There is a shed here and a few sidings adjacent to the main line, but the station proper is a dead end. Up trains must reverse out of the station (across a busy road junction) before they can continue on their climb. It is said that the station was built this way so that the train could enter a secure yard and stay there while the passengers left the train for refreshments.
Above Kurseong station, the railway runs through the bazaar. Trains skirt the front of shops and market stalls on this busy stretch of road.
Tung Station
Dilaram Station
Sonada Station
Sonada is a small station which serves town of sonada on Darjeeling Himalayan railway. It is on Siliguri - Darjeeling national highway (NH 55).
Rangbul Station
Jorebungalow Station
This is a small location near Darjeeling and a railway station on Darjeeling Himalayan railway. Jorebungalow was store point for tea to Calcutta. This is a strategical place to connect Darjeeling to rest of the country.
Ghum Station
Ghum, summit of the line and highest station in India. Now includes a museum on the first floor of the station building with larger exhibits in the old goods yard. Once this was the railway station at highest altitude overall and is the highest altitude station for narrow gauge railway.
Batasia Loop
It is 5 km from Darjeeling, below Ghum. There is also a memorial to the Gorkha soldiers of the Indian Army who sacrificed their lives after the Indian Independence in 1947. From the Batasia Loop one can get a panoramic view of Darjeeling town with the Kanchenjunga and other snowy mountains in the back-drop.
Darjeeling Station
The farthest reach of the line was to Darjeeling Bazaar, a goods-only line and now lost under the road surface and small buildings.
Locomotives
Current
Steam
All the steam locomotives currently in use on the railway are of the "B" Class, a design built by Sharp, Stewart and Company, and later the North British Locomotive Company, between 1889 and 1925. A total of 34 were built but by 2005 only 12 remained on the railway and in use (or under repair).
In 2002 No.787 was rebuilt with oil firing. This was originally installed to work on the same principle as that used on Nilgiri Mountain Railway No.37395. A diesel-powered generator was fitted to operate the oil burner and an electrically-driven feed pump, and a diesel-powered compressor was fitted to power the braking system. Additionally the locomotive was fitted with a feedwater heater. The overall result was a dramatic change in the appearance of the locomotive.However, the trials of the locomotive were disappointing and it never entered regular service. In early 2011 it was in Tindharia Works awaiting reconversion to coal-firing.
In March 2001, No.794 was transferred to the Matheran Hill Railway to allow a "Joy Train"(steam-hauled tourist train) to be operated on that railway. It did not, however, enter service there until May 2002.
Diesel
Four diesel locomotives are in use Nos.601-2,604 & 605 of the NDM6 class transferred from the Matheran Hill Railway.
Past
In 1910 the railway purchased the third Garratt locomotive built, a "D" class 0-4-0+0-4-0.
Only one DHR steam locomotive has been taken out of India, No.778 (originally No.19). After many years out of use in an American museum, it was sold to an enthusiast in the UK and restored to working order. It is now based on a private railway (The Beeches Light Railway) in Oxfordshire but has run on the Ffestiniog Railway, the Launceston Steam Railway and the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway.
In popular culture
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has long been viewed with affection and enthusiasm by travellers to the region, and the Earl of Ronaldshay gave the following description of a journey in the early 1920s:
"Siliguri is palpably a place of meeting ... The discovery that here the metre gauge system ends and the two foot gauge of the Darjeeling-Himalayan railway begins, confirms what all these things hint at ... One steps into a railway carriage which might easily be mistaken for a toy, and the whimsical idea seizes hold of one that one has accidentally stumbled into Lilliput. With a noisy fuss out of all proportion to its size the engine gives a jerk — and starts ... No special mechanical device such as a rack is employed — unless, indeed, one can so describe the squat and stolid hill-man who sits perched over the forward buffers of the engine and scatters sand on the rails when the wheels of the engine lose their grip of the metals and race, with the noise of a giant spring running down when the control has been removed. Sometimes we cross our own track after completing the circuit of a cone, at others we zigzag backwards and forwards; but always we climb at a steady gradient — so steady that if one embarks in a trolley at Ghum, the highest point on the line, the initial push supplies all the energy necessary to carry one to the bottom."
The trip up to Darjeeling on railway has changed little since that time, and continues to delight travellers and rail enthusiasts, so much so that it has its own preservation and support group, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society.
Several Bollywood movies have portrayed the railway. Especially popular was the song Mere sapno ki rani from the film Aradhana where the protagonist Rajesh Khanna tries to woo heroine Sharmila Tagore who was riding in the train. Other notable films include Jhumroo, Parineeta and Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman. The Darjeeling Limited, a film directed by Wes Anderson, features a trip by three brothers on a fictional long-distance train based loosely on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.
Television The BBC made a series of three documentaries[10] dealing with Indian Hill Railways, with the NMR being featured in the second programme shown in February 2010. The first film covers the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway, the second the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the third the Kalka-Shimla Railway.) The films were directed by Tarun Bhartiya, Hugo Smith and Nick Mattingly, and produced by Gerry Troyna. The series won the UK Royal Television Society Award in June 2010.
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