3 World Heritage Mountain Railways in India
The Mountain railways of India are the railway lines that were built in the mountainous regions of India. The site includes three railways. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway declared as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, followed by the Nilgiri Mountain Railway in 2005. The Kalka–Shimla Railway received the designation in 2008.
Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
Opened in 1881, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was the first, and is still the most outstanding, example of a hill passenger railway. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is a 610 mm narrow-gauge railway, that links the 88 km between Siliguri and Darjeeling – a major summer hill station, and the centre of a flourishing tea-growing district located in West Bengal.
The route is operated by Indian Railways, and its elevation starts at 100 m in Siliguri and rises to about 2,200 m at Darjeeling. The highest elevation is at Ghoom station, 2,300 m.
Nilgiri Mountain Railway
The construction of the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, a 46-km long metre-gauge single-track railway in Tamil Nadu State was started in 1891 and was completed in 1908. This railway, scaling an elevation of 326 m to 2,203 m, represented the latest technology of the time.
It connects the town of Mettupalayam with the hill station of Udagamandalam. The route is located within the state of Tamil Nadu and travels through the Nilgiri Hills, which are popularly known as the Blue Mountains of Southern India.
The Nilgiri is the only rack railway in India, and it uses an ABT rack system. The ABT system requires the use of special steam locomotives. The line contains 208 curves, 16 tunnels, and 250 bridges, causing the uphill journey along the route to take about 5 hours, while the downhill journey takes 4 hours.
Kalka Shimla Mountain Railway
The Kalka Shimla Railway, a 96-km long, and its gauge is narrow 762 mm, is a single track working rail link built in the mid-19th century, to provide a service to the highland town of Shimla, is emblematic of the technical and material efforts, to disenclave mountain populations through the railway.
The Kalka–Shimla Railway runs between Kalka and Shimla. Shimla is the modern capital of Himachal Pradesh at an elevation of 2205 m, in the foothills of the Himalayas. It became the summer capital of British India in 1864, and it also served as the headquarters of the British Army in India.
The Kalka–Shimla Railway has 103 tunnels and 864 bridges. Many of the bridges are multi-arched, reminiscent of Ancient Roman aqueducts, and one bridge, which spans 18.29 m , is made with plate girders and steel trusses. Its ruling gradient is 3%, and it features 919 curves, with the sharpest at 48 degrees.
The tracks climb from 656 m to a peak elevation of 2,076 at Shimla. The longest tunnel on the line is the Barog Tunnel , which is 1144 m long, connecting Dagshai and Solan.
