Place · mountain railway · India
Kalka–Shimla Railway
The 96-kilometre narrow-gauge mountain railway opened on 9 November 1903 by the Delhi-Umbala-Kalka Railway Company, climbing from 656m at Kalka to 2,076m at Shimla through 102 tunnels (originally 103, one collapsed), 864 bridges and 919 curves on a 2-foot-6-inch gauge. The Barog Tunnel (1,143m, built 1898-1903) is the line's longest; engineer Colonel Barog shot himself after his pilot tunnel misaligned, and is buried near the tunnel that bears his name. The railway served the British Raj's summer capital at Shimla and was inscribed as part of the Mountain Railways of India UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 (with Darjeeling and Nilgiri). Still runs daily toy-train service with heritage steam excursions.
- Date
- 2008
- Function
- Travel & migration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 31.090, 77.170
Connections (4)
- Route adjacencyViceregal Lodge, Shimla
The Kalka–Shimla line was built because the government of India spent half of each year on the ridge above it; before 1903 files, furniture and clerks went up by tonga and mule. Viceregal Lodge and the railway are one administrative fact in two forms, and both are now World Heritage or national property rather than working government.
- In the same set asMountain railways: Darjeeling
The Mountain Railways of India were inscribed in three stages — Darjeeling in 1999, the Nilgiri in 2005, Kalka-Shimla in 2008 — as one property with three components, and the three use three different solutions to the same problem: loops and Z-reverses, an Abt rack and pinion, and a hundred and three tunnels. All were built to move British officials and their cargo uphill.
- In the same set asThe Khyber Pass Railway
Two of the most heavily engineered railways the Raj built in mountains, for opposite purposes. The Kalka–Shimla line of 1903 carried a government up to a hill station for the summer: a hundred and three tunnels, eight hundred bridges, and a two-foot-six gauge climbing to the viceregal capital. The Khyber Pass Railway of 1920–25 carried artillery to a frontier: thirty-four tunnels, two reversing zig-zags and a six-hundred-metre climb to Landi Kotal. One line was built so that an empire could be comfortable, the other so that it could be ready.
- ReachesShimla
The Kalka-Shimla Railway — 96 km of 2-ft 6-in narrow gauge between Kalka and Shimla, opened 9 November 1903 by Bhāgwān Singh for the Delhi-Ambala-Kalka Railway Company — climbs 1,420 m through 102 tunnels and 988 bridges to reach the summer capital. Inscribed on the UNESCO 'Mountain Railways of India' list in 2008 alongside the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.
On these journeys
Sources
List of World Heritage Sites in India — Wikipedia
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