A historic track record

Ambika Sharma on the Kalka-Shimla rail line which is tipped for inclusion in the world heritage list

The 104-year-old historic Kalka-Shimla railway track may well be on its way to being included in the coveted world heritage list. A seven-member UNESCO team would be inspecting it on September 11. This would add another feather to its cap. It is already enlisted in ‘Rail Facts and Feats’ in The Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest narrow gauge engineering feat of the mechanical age.

Constructed in the early 20th century, it is an engineering feat and among the country’s four unique narrow-gauge rail tracks. This railway line was first sketched in November 1847, almost 50 years before its construction. It was inaugurated by the British Viceroy, Lord Curzon, in November 1903.

Covering a distance of 96 km from Kalka, the track meanders through deep ravines and the lofty Shivalik hills. Being a narrow-gauge rail line, mini-trains, popularly called ‘toy trains’, run on these tracks. A traveller is taken in by the unblemished natural setting and a memorable journey that wades through 102 tunnels, big and small. Initially, there were 103 tunnels, but tunnel number 46 does not exist any more. A toy train takes about three minutes to cross the longest tunnel at Barog. The other three big tunnels en route are at Koti (2,276 ft), Taradevi (1,615 ft) and tunnel no. 103 (1,135 ft).

The journey from Kalka at 640 m above sea level, almost immediately leads to a hilly panorama till it reaches the dizzying heights of Shimla at 2,060 m. The toy train gradually traverses hills, bridges and brooks, refreshing the traveller with nature’s vast treasures of green pines, alpines, deodars, oak and maples. At the foothills one gets an awe-inspiring view of the Kaushalya river and the tiny stations on the way like Koti, Barog and Kanoh that are characterised by neat gardens and gabled roofs.

The Kalka-Shimla toy train has about seven coaches that can accommodate as many as 200 passengers in a single trip. The trains have an arduous task in trying to negotiate the ascend of more than 2,000 m and it’s the pertinently devised 700 horsepower B-B type diesel engine which has been braving the steep climbs for decades now. Braving temperature ranging from 0`B0C to 45`B0C, snowfall as well as an annual rainfall of 200-220 cm, the toy trains move at an average speed of 25-30 km.

It was during the British regime that the idea to lay this track was conceived. After spending the summer in Shimla in 1827, Lord Amherst, the Governor-General of India, caught a fancy for the town. It was during his successor Lord William Bentinck’s term that Shimla became the summer headquarters of the government.

The journey from the plains to Shimla was considered arduous and tough. The first major achievement in this direction was the opening of the Grand Hindostan and Tibet Road in 1856. Earlier, the mode of travel to the hills was by jampans (sedan chair fitted with curtains and slung on poles borne by bearers at an even trot) for women, and men usually rode the track via Kasauli, Kakkarhati, Haripur and Syree to Shimla. Then came the 58-mile tract to Shimla passing through Dharampur, Solan and Kairee Ghat, to be followed by the Kalka-Shimla Tonga Service.

It was during the tenure of Marquess of Dufferin as the Viceroy (1884-1888) that the construction of a railway line was actively considered. A new company, Delhi-Umbala-Kalka Railway, started the construction of the line from Ambala to Kalka in 1891. It took another 10 years to extend this line to Shimla when Lord Curzon was the Viceroy, and the line was formally opened on November 9, 1903, after having spent Rs 1.6 crore, with a single track of 2ft-6in gauge.

Connecting Kalka to Shimla was no easy task as the civil engineers had to lay the track so that it did not disturb the pristine surroundings. Chronicled as the most surveyed project of its time, it was a correspondent of Delhi Gazette who first sketched the route in 1847. No work was done on the project till 1885, when the project was revived again. Even a second report, prepared for this rail link in 1887, failed to initiate any concrete work. Yet another survey, commissioned in 1895, finally resulted in the signing of the Kalka-Shimla Construction Contract. Baba Bhalku, a local, proved of much assistance in laying this track whenever the British engineers encountered a problem.