Date:23/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/23/stories/2006082307131300.htm

National

126 years and still chugging

Marcus Dam

KOLKATA: Three vintage steam locomotives will simultaneously chug out of Siliguri railway station on Wednesday to commemorate the anniversary of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) services. The country's first "toy train" made its maiden run in the hills on August 23, 1880.

Siliguri is the only station in the world to have all three railway gauges — broad, metre and narrow, Northeastern Frontier Railway (NFR) authorities say. DHR is the second railway system in the world to be accorded World Heritage site status by UNESCO, in December 1999.

The Indian Railways run trains on the narrow gauge including in the Darjeeling hills where steam locomotives are no longer in routine use in the broad and metre gauge sections, according to T. Rabha, Chief Public Relations Officer, NFR. "The idea of having steam locomotives to roll out of Siliguri station on all the three gauges is to revive memories of the predominance of such locomotives in the railway network as well as to commemorate the occasion of the first DHR toy train service from Siliguri to Kurseong in the Darjeeling hills," he said on Tuesday.

The MAWD locomotive that will haul carriages on the metre gauge, built in 1944 in the U.S, has been brought from Guwahati; the engines are still being used for chartered trips in the NFR's Lumding division in Assam. The one to be operated on the broad gauge was made by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in 1965. It has been requisitioned for the occasion from the Rewari locomotive shed of the Northern Railway in Haryana.