Home > Travel > Transport International >

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway

Description: The railway line runs from Siliguri to Darjeeling in West Bengal, India. The train is a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Newest Review: ... elite. But getting to the hill stations was never an easy job and took many days, incurred considerable dangers and some ... more

... convoluted methods of transport. Consequently the creation of a railway to Darjeeling made the area much more accessible to anyone willing to be dragged up a hill backwards. The DHR was constructed in the 1880s and is approximately 86km long. This massive feat of Victorian engineering climbs more than 2100 m in altitude, reaching its highest point at Ghum or Ghoom station, before trundling downhill for the last 5 km into Darjeeling's town centre. All of this is done on a gauge of just 2 feet (or 610mm). The steam locomoti...more

Read Reviews for Darjeeling Himalayan Railway

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway: A very different approach to Joy-riding - Indian style (1982 words)
by - written on 01/01/09 (Very useful, 150 readings)
Rating:

Travel has a funny habit of making us behave in ways we'd never do in our home environment - you only have to see a plane load of British tourists on their way home from a beach resort to know that they'd never dress quite that badly at home. For some people foreign climes encourage binge drinking and unprotected sex with strangers; in others, like my parents, it brings out the urge to get 'cultured' and traipse round museums they'd never bother with back home. My particular travel insanity is an inability to remember just how much I hate train travel the moment I see the words 'narrow gauge'. I'm not kidding; in the UK I vowed during my student days that the ... Read the complete review

Read 1 review

Write a review