22nd August 2010 – Last time when we planned to go to Simla, we ended up at Rewari (India’s last standing) Steam Loco Shed! And part of the reason was that the train from Delhi to Kalka – the venerable Kalka Mail – the old 11 up, was running late by a few hours – in direct contrast to its venerability. And it was not really to go to Simla, but for experiencing the Kalka Simla rail section – the difference is not as subtle as it may sound to non-train people. So some other means had to be resorted to. And Vikas has this justifiable aversion to my preference for ultra short trips, where the plan is at its optimistic best as far as journey times are concerned. My reasons – India has progressed, there are great roads, we are reasonable drivers, so why not push – after all there is enjoyment to be had at speed. But there is substance to his argument of being too tired to see the place after a grueling drive. So there it stood. Finally, he suggested that we drive down to Kalka and do the train journey over a day and then drive back. Are we sure? Yes, we can start at 8 pm, reach around 12, sleep for 5-6 hours and catch the train in the morning. Sounded right to me. But as things turned out, we could not start before 10 in the night; getting to Panipat took us ages; I pushed Ark and we did not find any traffic jams but still did not get to Kalka Station 0 mile by the old version of GPS based phone running mapmyindia.com maps, before 2 am. We were on a bridge, on the Chandigarh-Simla road, with railway tracks running under the bridge and no station in sight! By asking a few people, we found the lane on the left, which led to the station about a km away.
So finally we had reached Kalka and had to leave Ark in a safe spot. There was no parking fellow in sight. We chose a well lit place for Ark, took out our change of clothes and went into the station. Kalka is one of the most important end of the line stations before Himalayas – important from logistics point of view as well as strategic. Lot of hardware stuff would flow through here, if Chinese decided to gatecrash through the Tibet route. The station itself is quintessential Indian Railways – almost out of a template – First Class waiting room, dormitory, second class waiting room etc. We were quite keen to prove to ourselves that even 1 hour of sleep would be of immense benefit to us and we looked through the doors of the dorm and the other rooms but could not find anyone, who had the key. Finally, we found someone awake in the TTE room. The fellow actually turned out to be incharge of giving out dorm rooms. He called himself Daljeet (that’s what I heard!) or Sanjeev (that’s what Vikas heard!). With some money having changed hands, we got two beds in the 6 bed dorm. There were 4 men already sleeping there – I decided to stay doze in the chair and Vikas slept. The men were evidently from the peninsular India. At 3.30 am, shriek of a police siren along with some less evolved keyboard music woke everyone up! This was one of our dorm occupants mobile phone alarm going off! A gentle giant woke from a bed and woke everyone else up and they were on to their morning stuff. I convinced Vikas that no police raid had taken place and asked him to resume his nap of a sleep by a few minutes more. Eventually, we got up and went in search of the 1KS passenger Kalka-Shimla and found it at the very end of the broad gauge platform, where there are a couple of platforms for the narrow gauge trains.
1KS, was a small rake – from the rear, there was the guard van cum coupe just for women, then the luggage van, our coach – divided into a section for 1st class and a section for 2nd class seating, then one more 2nd class seating coach for people with prior reservation and then 2 coaches of unreserved category, headed by a cute looking diesel engine with the moniker ZDM3 182. Z refers to the narrow gauge, D for diesel as means for traction and M for its mixed use – it could be used to haul goods or passenger trains.
The first class compartment had acres of space for 2 people and then Vikas wanted to go out and buy some junk food and I saw that the chart pasted outside had 4 more names- gave me a strong suspicion that the 4 some from the dorm were going to travel with us and soon they came along with Daljeet-Sanjeev. He was also the ticket checker that morning. He assured us that he would tell the parking attendant to look after the Ark and I think he looked a bit sheepish about the money he had charged us earlier and was seeking some way to make amends. He told us that the 4some were railway police guys from Andhra who had come to Kalka on some official work and were on a day trip to Shimla. Drat!
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| Reservation Chart |
Anyway, these guys were quite nice and the one with the horrendous ringer tone, took some of our photographs as well – before asking us to take his photograph for his family back in Andhra – on his mobile camera. And they were impressed with the DSLR we were carrying – everyone is – Canon 300 rebel had the most impressive looking body with a good heavy feel.
The train took off later than the promised 4 am. And we were looking at each other with goofy grins at each other- the same expression as we’d had when we played with toytrain sets ages ago. Then I spotten how the monsoons had left a mark on the old coach – there was a mushroom growing right on the window sill! That was my first photo of the trip.
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| Mushroom on the window sill |
It was still too dark outside as the train wound its way through Baddi industrial area, out of Kalka, before beginning its climb towards Shimla. I was all ready with the camera, hoping to catch some aspect of the sunrise. As the dark diffused away, there were far too many clouds and a bit of drizzle for me to be able to catch the sun. The first photograph- a bit of the mountains going away in a haze of motion captures what was happening, as I was balancing the camera, and the camera was struggling with the motion, changing light and auto focus working to find focus on objects rushing by and those on the horizon.
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| Views rushing by |
The first station - Taksal came in half hour and I did not venture out – Vikas wanted to utilize the still pervasive dark, as the reason why he should be doing some shut-eye than anything else. Second halt at Ghumman had me out – it was great stepping quickly to the ground – which is a very different experience than when you try to jump off a broad gauge train, when it stops in the middle of nowhere! The platform and the station had a nice feel to it – everything was kind of scaled down and while it is a serious rail operation, it still looked like an elaborate train set. The platform was rain-washed, shrubbery was well maintained, green, and did not look overgrown despite monsoon. Everywhere one could see signages which proclaimed Kalka-Shimal Railway’s newly won world heritage site status. The experience was similar at Koti and Sonwara stations. However, between Koti and Sonwara, there was the first of the long tunnels – Tunnel no. 10 – at least half km long. And the shouts of people in the coaches ahead, as we entered the tunnel and to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel was a differently real experience, considering how often we hear about it in life’s difficult phases. I did check later – it is the second longest tunnel on the route.
The next big halt was Dharampur – where I am told, people get off to go to Kasauli and to the snob school of Sanawar. The train was rapidly gaining height going around the screw-edged rail route, with valley views on both sides – with me vying with the Andhra guys in monopolising the door. The camera still shook and to take a good photograph from the moving train. Couple of interesting valleyviews –
We reached Dharampur while the day was just about to break and I think I just took too many pictures here – more than the place warranted. I was just being greedy as the space on the SD card was limited and later we had to do a lot of rationing and culling of photographs to accommodate new ones and then reducing resolution settings to get some more! Like most stations, this station too had a loop line going to the main platform but had a big town visible behind the station. And like many stations, you could see the mouth of a tunnel at the end of the station, with the platform along a curve, not in a straight line.
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| Dharampur |
Due to the rains, the hillsides were wearing a thick green cover and if one stood at the door, there were chances of getting a twig of the branches rushing by entangled in your clothes or even into your eye! We reached the small station of Kumarhatti and met the first of the non-official group of dogs on KS Railway! He was pretty, stood on the platform with curiosity and affection that only a dog can have. And when I bent down towards him, I got a lick on my nose! It was a small halt and I was wondering if I would meet other members of the group further on – on other stations!
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| He licked me on the nose! |
Soon we saw the board of the longest tunnel on the route – the Barog tunnel – its 1 km long and its so straight that you can see the “light at the end of the tunnel” even before you enter it! And there were familiar whoops which accompanied every entry and exit from a tunnel by the tourists on the train and the train emerged at the Barog station.
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| The Barog Tunnel |
Barog station is picture postcard perfect - creepers and vines run all over the the place and there are sloping red tile roofs, old colonial style buildings with the mouth of the Barog tunnel marking one end of it and a small badminton court the other end! I remembered how I had spotted this station ten years back from the road above and had found my way down and how I and Priya were thrilled at discovering it and had waited around to see a train come in and go past…
We met the members of the KS Railway Dog group of Barog station – the family photo.
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| Dog Family at Barog |
Then we walked up to the mouth of the tunnel and figured the name Barog. The story on the plaque is sad – it is about the kind of accountability that people took for their actions back then. The tunnel on the railway was commissioned to be built by a person named Barog – only that the alignment turned out to be wrong and the bore from one end did not meet the bore from the other end. He was symbolically fined Rs 1 by the government for the failure and he owned the failure so much that he killed himself. The wrong tunnel was abandoned and a new one made – and next to it the most picturesque station on the line, named after the man – Barog.
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| Barog Railway Station |
Barog is also the point where trains have the longest halt and people get down and loiter around for a while. We also got acquainted with the guard on the train – a young chap – Arun Vashisht. We also took his advice about where are the best rest rooms on the line and he promptly advised that you can get a room at a short notice at either Barog or Summer Hill stations. And of course when we wanted to click his photo, he looked a bit embarrassed by the attention!
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| Arun Vashisht: Guard on KS1 on 22nd Aug 2010 |
At Solan, we saw the serious side of the railway line – its cheap transportation potential. The brakevan of even the toytrain is quite spacious and can take up quite a bit – there was assorted stuff – including a very large sofa-set that was being loaded on to the train there. And keeping a careful watch on the proceedings was the member of the Solan chapter of the Kalka-Simla Railway Dogs!
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| Solan |
Then we passed Salogra – which was half covered with mist or was it a cloud at that height? It looked all very mysterious as mist makes such places.
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| Salogra in Mist |
Kandaghat was a happening place. There was a lot of bustle and activity on the station. The chaiwala looked in his element and probably what many chaiwalas would aspire to look like (Vikas was of the carefully considered opinion that he has the potential to replace Amir Khan – or some Khan – in Bollywoord). And by this time people on the train were also showing signs of some fatigue. The Dog group had sent the telepathic message to its fetching member at Kandaghat to greet us at the station. You can judge for yourself!
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| Not everyone was as excited as us! |
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| Kandaghat Dog Squad |
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| Can he give the Khans a run for their money? |
From Kandaghat, the gradient seemed to increase quite a bit and the temperature drop was perceptible. We went over many arch-bridges which are a distinctive feature of this railway – and there are multiple levels to every bridge – almost like a multistory building. The highest bridge on this section has 4 levels and is located just before the picturesque but tiny station of Kanoh. More on that later. This is how an arch bridge looks from the train –
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| Typical Arch Bridge |
As the train was snaking its way uphill, the views of the valleys became even better and it was one of those days, when there is that mist, the hills are green and everything has that freshly washed look.
We passed Kathleeghat and Shoghi which were not as remarkable as the previous stations – except that Shoghi had some marvelous sunflowers in full bloom.
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| Shoghi Sunflowers |
Then we came to Taradevi – another unremarkable station but the train took a rather long halt there. Its located just before tunnel 92. Then the reason became apparent as the train from the other side emerged from the tunnel and seemed to come straight at us! It had the locomotive from the same family – we had 183 of ZDM3 class loco and this one was 150 of the ZDM3 class. This train had different type of coaches and something very peculiar – one open carriage with a 5000 litre sintex water tank!
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| It seemed to be coming straight at me! |
The vegetation on the hill side also deserves a mention – though I am hardly any kind of authority on the subject but to find a huge cactus on the hill side at this altitude was very surprising! And there were many varieties of it on the sides of the tracks –
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| Cactus on the hill |
The next station was Jutogh where the Dog squad was not too keen to meet us – though by this time we were quite keen to meet the local rep!
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| Snubbed by him! |
Soon we were past Jutogh and rolling into Shimla. Finally! Shimla station is much larger and befits its status as one of the endpoints on the line. The whole line has been given the status of a World Heritage Site – and I would say not a day too soon! And all the stations along the line seemed to have been spruced up. Most of the improvement however, seemed to have happened at Shimla. There are two platforms on the same platform, a large waiting room, retiring rooms – but the facility looks too modern and seems to have lost a bit of its character which still lives on in places like Barog or Kanoh or Dharampur. It was drizzling quite a bit and we decided to go into the town to see what we could. The walk lasted about an hour which left us a bit wet, we found no eating joint which seemed inviting, the people on the street not very helpful and with the adrenalin wearing off, fatigue caught up with our spirits. We came back to the station and saw the pride of the line – the Shivalik Express chug in. It is red in colour and looks a miniature version of the Rajdhani Express. The engine of the train itself is custom – nothing like the ZDM that had got us to Shimla – it’s a very pretty diesel and I think there are three of them of the line – 701,702 and 703. I think the railways started this train on the Joginder Nagar line but as the traffic was not too good there, the whole rolling stock got shifted to Kalka Shimla line.
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| Shivalik Deluxe Express |
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| Prettiest Diesel NG Loco ever seen by me! |
We also met the group of the Dog squad of the Shimla region and one of my most memorable photographs is of that meeting – one of them cocking their head to one side like only dogs can, when offered a treat.
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| Do you really mean it? |
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| Rail Motor Car 4 |
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| Driver Controls |
I also had to conserve space on the card so that I could click some photos of the journey back. As daylight was going out, we were not sure till what point on the journey would we be able to click the vistas. We made a couple of videos using the Nokia 5130c, which is really a low res camera while on the way back and these are on youtube – these give you a feel of how the rail car moves. The funny thing about the railcar is its headlight which is spring mounted and keeps bobbing around creating a psychedelic light effect rather than a beam to help the driver see!
Soon we were on our way and as we were seated right behind the driver, we could see what the driver could see and its an amazing experience to see train driving from the driver’s perspective. What was also very visible was the respect that the loco pilots- as the train drivers preferred to be called – have on the line. At every point where there was a track alignment or repair gang working, they would respectfully salute the locopilot and the locopilot would respond with the same dignity – its not like the friendly wave of the kids by the track.
Soon we hit Taradevi again – the same place where we had stopped earlier in the day to allow another train to pass. This time I saw the Neals token system in action which was used extensively on all single line systems in India – I have seen locopilots grab the token – which is a wireloop with a ball attached to it- from a pole at speeds upwards of 60 kmph on MG lines in the 70s and toss out the token with them to the person waiting by the track. Tricky it can be. Here I saw the person waiting for the railbus to come alongside and holding the token in hand (no poles on this line). And then he saw me training my camera at him and he got a bit confused with the attention I guess!
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| See him standing with the green flag |
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| Why me? |
While going through the photographs later, I also realized that I had clicked this person in the morning inadvertently, while going towards Shimla! See below.
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| See him crossing the tracks! |
Then on the outskirts of Kanoh, the signal was around the curve and the loco pilot expected a pass-through. What he got was a stop signal and had trouble stopping the railbus and by time it did, it had passed the signal point – so the rail bus was reversed to a position before the signal – the bus is quite a magnificent piece of old machinery with a mind of its own and it does take kindly to the confusing demands being made on it. Then the crew got in touch with Kanoh on a walkie-talkie and told them cryptically – “Rail bus on the outer”. The signal status changed to “go” and we got parked at Kanoh which was not the scheduled stop. Here everyone just hung around and clicked themselves and their brood – railbus is hardly used by serious travelers. We also realized that the highest bridge on the line is just beyond Kanoh and so we went looking for it. It is quite a sight with a toy train on top of it but with a wide angle camera, one does not get the right perspective.
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| Do the touristy thing! |
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| The highest bridge on the line |
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| Kanoh Arch bridge |
That was the last photograph on the trip. By the time we got to Barog again – it was dark and it was raining. I slept for most the way back after that and near Kalka we caught the driver speaking to his wife about how he would be home soon and enquiring about whats cooking.
We found the Ark safe and sound and drove away back towards home. I drove till Chandigarh and then Vikas took over. He was having a hard time keeping awake near Kurukstetra when I took over and came back home to ecstatic kids and took them out for a walk at 2 am in the morning. Then promptly fell asleep to dreams of dogs running toy-trains on hillsides…
