Winding Through the Clouds on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway

22.09.2024 - 11:09 / cntraveler.com

Kneeling up on their seats, a troop of school girls clapped as a popular Bollywood song played out from a phone. Plaited into loops, their matching hair swung to the rhythm of the train as it curled around a wide arc, the back end snaking out of a bamboo forest. I was on board the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and the climb up West Bengal’s jungled slopes was alive with music, cheering, and hoots at every turn. From the open doorway I could smell the freshness of pine, its clean scent soon overpowered by skinny eucalyptus towering overhead. Leaning into the wind, I heard another favorite filmy number start up and ducked back inside to join in with the singalong.

That morning I had arrived at New Jalpaiguri station in Siliguri, one of the busiest junctions in northeast India, and the origin for the affectionately known ‘Toy Train’ to Darjeeling. Over seven and a half hours, the train would clatter uphill at 4.4 mph, arriving around 5:30 p.m. into the city famous for its tea. Barely two strides wide, the rickety little service has been a much-loved feature of the landscape since the late nineteenth century when British colonizers first set it to work. At the time there was a huge discrepancy—between Darjeeling and Siliguri—in the cost of daily commodities like rice and potatoes owing to the need to transport them up and down the hillside. To solve the problem, the governing East India Company decided that a steam railway was the answer, one that would also alleviate increasing traffic on the single road and facilitate the production and sale of tea.

The train at Batasia Loop, a spiral railway track with commanding views of the Himalayan peaks and the town of Darjeeling

Locomotives arrived from Manchester in the UK and in 1881, the railway officially opened—the 2-foot narrow-gauge steam train embarking upon an incredible journey, one that would be filled with literal twists and turns and figurative ones too, as a result of physical challenges, increases in tourism, and natural disasters including earthquakes and cyclones that would continually damage the tracks. But this was a railway with resolve, and more than 140 years after it first puffed its way through low-hanging cloud, I was already in thrall to the string of blue carriages as they clanked their way north.

Who this train journey is for: Heritage railway fans and large groups of friends

Length of the journey: 7 hours

Towns you pass by: Siliguri, Tindharia, Kurseong, Ghoom

Cost of a ticket: Rs.1105 ($13) one way

What to eat on board: Bring a packed lunch of pakoras, samosas, and tea as there is no catering on board

Where to stay in Darjeeling: The Elgin Darjeeling; doubles from Rs.9000 ($110) per night including breakfast

For the first half of the