The Little Fire Wagon

-- Mark Twain ,
describing his journey on Darjeeling's "toy" train over a 100 years ago in 1895

LIKE all things British in India, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) too has a fund of anecdotes centred around the toy train that runs between New Jalpaiguri in the plains of north Bengal to the lofty heights of Darjeeling hills. Pashang Sherpa, who joined the DHR in 1962, has a favourite one that he recounts to anyone who cares to listen. Sherpa's weather-beaten face breaks into a broad smile when he talks about an old British lady who came to Darjeeling in the summer of 1998.

Recounts Sherpa: "The lady was about 75 and had six grandchildren in tow. She came to the Darjeeling station, looked around the area as if trying to recollect something and then kissed the locomotive and said 'now I can die in peace'. She came from England only to take a trip down memory lane. She told me she was studying here in Loreto Convent when the British Raj ended. For 50 years, she had dreamt of coming back here and again take a ride in the train which she ultimately did along with her grandchildren."

Mark Tully, former BBC correspondent in India, used to go to his school on this train during the 1940s. He fondly recollects: "It was always a jolly ride on the train, especially when we could jump off it and then again get onto it. I still remember the lovely lunches we've had on it. My fondest memories as a child was watching as many as six men working hard to man the engine. Since my father was the director of the Gillanders, who were managing the train in those days, I always felt proud whenever I was on it. It was as if I owned it."

The British sentiment is understandable when you look at the way the railway is built. Snaking along sharp bends and steep gradients, the 87.4 km-long narrow gauge (two feet) line is an engineering marvel. Opened in 1880, pulled by steam locomotives, some of which are over a 100 years old, the blue three-coach train labours its way up the winding track, most of which goes through dense jungles in the lower reaches and amidst tall pine trees and terraced tea gardens as it gains height.

At Kurseong, a mid-way town at 4,800 ft, the world's third-highest mountain, Kanchenjunga, comes into view - its snow-capped peak providing a spectacular backdrop to the beauteous landscape. Says Tully: "The absolutely stunning view of Kanchenjunga is an image that has not left me since my childhood. I always thought and I still maintain that it is perhaps the best view of the Himalayas from anywhere in the world." By the time the train reaches Ghoom at 7,000 ft, the world's second-highest railway station, it has traversed only 65 km from the plains of Siliguri. Then, from Ghoom, it rolls down to Darjeeling town, at 6,000 ft. Along the zig-zag track, the engine sometimes comically goes into reverse gear, then again forward to negotiate steep gradients. And in three places, the railway spirals up whole loops of 360 degrees to climb high slopes.

For years, the DHR was the main engine for Darjeeling's development into a booming tourist town. Over the last three decades, however, the train lost much of its importance as impatient tourists shunned the slow, leisurely journey by the DHR and started using taxis instead. Simultaneously, the tea industry which used to bring in most of its supplies and ship the teas into the plains, also abandoned DHR. Gradually, the train became unviable, so much so that in the early 1990s there were talks of closing it down permanently.

Luckily, in the mid-1990s, some concerned citizens of Darjeeling and the UK formed a group called 'Friends of the DHR' and took active interest in salvaging the train. In December 1999, Unesco listed the Darjeeling train as a World Heritage property and suggested several changes and improvements to the system. The old steam locomotives, some of them of the 1880s vintage, were restored thanks to dedicated staff like Sherpa who are attached to these tiny engines more than their children. "Sometimes, we have spent from our own pockets and kept the engines running," says Sherpa, whose father also worked on the DHR. He is particularly proud of the Himalayan Bird, built in 1889 and still running. Every morning, Sherpa and his team of mechanics get the locomotive ready for the short 10-km journey to Ghoom. The number of passengers on a given day may be less than half-a-dozen, but still the train is run. That's precisely why the Railway wants to improve its viability.

Says Ashwini Lohani, a director in the ministry of tourism and a former director of the Rail Museum in Delhi: "I visited Darjeeling in 1997 and 1998 because I had heard a lot about this train. The beautiful terrain and the landscape apart, the train is in itself a marvellous piece of engineering. The old B-class engines, built by Sharp Stuart of England, and the vintage bogies, built anytime between 1890 and 1930, has a very wide fan following. I am told that many foreigners visit Darjeeling regularly only to take a ride on the train."

Chris Ruthnaswamy, general manager (duty free trade) of Indian Tourism Development Corporation, visited Darjeeling last year on his wife Inkit's recommendation and is still in a trance after a ride on the train. Says he: "A unique thing about the train is the fact that it meanders through the town, with the road running parallel with you and sometimes beautifully painted and well-kept houses on both sides. Surprisingly, the engine driver has the right of the way and if ever there is an accident, it is never his fault."

One way of making DHR economically more viable is to use a diesel locomotive to haul up the train from New Jalpaiguri. As North-east Frontier Railway general manager Rajendra Nath says: "The diesel engine has a distinct advantage over the steam by way of its better haulage capacity, lesser travel time and reduced operational costs. The diesel engine will haul up to six passenger coaches compared to three by the steam loco. The steam engines will be used for the tourist joy ride between Darjeeling and Ghoom and back." In any case, Nath says, the NF Railway has a plan to upgrade the tracks, and carry out improvement to the entire system at a cost of Rs 6 crore and use the steam engines sparingly to prolong their life further. "Just by introducing the diesel locomotives we are not violating any of the Heritage terms," the general manager told Outlook.

Indeed, the daily train between Darjeeling and New Jalpaiguri, with a diesel engine, is now full of passengers who do not mind the six-hour journey, although they had earlier avoided the trip that took nine hours by a steam engine. But steam engines have got many lovers. Travel writer Bill Aitken, who followed the train on a motorbike during one of his visits to Darjeeling in 1986, says: "It was certainly an out-of-this-world experience. I have always maintained that steam engines have a certain different dimension of poetry in it. Diesel has no face to it." P.R. Perera, regional in charge of Unesco's cultural projects, based in New Delhi, has apparently written to its World Heritage Bureau in Paris asking it to write to the Indian government not to tamper with the original character of the heritage property. "The Government of India, being party to the World Heritage Convention of 1972, should respect its norms and should not do anything that endangers or alters the basic structure of the site which is of immense historical value and world importance," Perera said.

Whatever the debate, the fact remains that the DHR is the biggest tourist attraction in Darjeeling and therefore the NF Railway plan to lease out the train to private entrepreneurs on the lines of the famous Palace of Wheels in Rajasthan makes ample sense.

Sixty years after Mark Twain's journey, a debonair Dev Anand wooed the beauteous Asha Parekh sitting in the toy train in the movie, Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai. Maybe another movie-maker will use the DHR as its backdrop in the near future. For, nostalgia, a trip down memory lane, sentimental attachment, call it what you may, the DHR evokes all these reactions among those who visit Darjeeling and will continue to do so as long as the train chugs along the mountains and enters Darjeeling.