Darjeeling, West Bengal

One of the major attractions of this fabulous hill station is the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a steam locomotive.  While the long-haul trip from the plains of West Bengal to Darjeeling (about 70 km which could take about 6-7 hours by train) is on hold due to restoration work following a major landslide a few years ago, the short trip is operated by the Railways as a ‘Joy Ride.’  The bogies are pulled by a steam locomotive, one of the very few of its kind being operated in the world.  One might wonder what is so fascinating about a steam locomotive, which is probably over a hundred years old, running at a speed of about 10 km an hour, or perhaps even slower.  One gets a better perspective when one realizes  that over a century ago, before DHR (Darjeeling Himalayan Railway) came into existence, it used to take about 5 days to reach Darjeeling from the plains of West Bengal, a distance of about 70 km.  Some of the charts displayed at the Railway museum portray the conditions which prevailed over a century ago; how much thought, effort and time went into making DHR a reality; why and how, at that time, the whistle and smoke of this train chugging up from the plains to the slopes of Darjeeling, was a boon in terms of convenience and a delight for the senses    ...