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By 1878 a railway had been
completed from Calcutta (now Kolkata)
to Siliguri, almost to the base of
the Himalayas, and a tonga service
took travellers thence up the hill
portion of the journey. But the
ascent by tongas soon led to
dissatisfaction with this means of
transit, and the idea for inception
of the laying of a steam tramway
along the road from Siliguri to
Darjeeling arose.
The tonga service on the cart road
alluded above served travellers and
traders for ten years, but when the
obvious disavantages of such a means
of communication led to proposals
for the laying of a steam tramway
from Siliguri to Darjeeling, Mr.
Franklin Prestage (at that time
Agent of the Eastern Bengal Railway
Company) approached the Government
of Bengal in 1878 with a detailed
scheme. Sir Ashley Eden, the
Lieutenant-Governor, appointed a
Committee to examine the project,
and this Committee reported that the
construction of a steam tramway was
feasible and would be great
advantage, both to the Government
and the public. The cart road had
indeed suffered heavily from slips
during each rainy season and
inconvenience and lengthy
interruption to communications had
resulted. The upkeep of the road
moreover, cost the Government about
one and a half lakhs of rupees
anually, and it was hoped that the
tramway would be able to help to
defray this cost.
Mr. Prestage's scheme was gladly
accepted in 1879, and the
construction of the tramway was
commenced and pushed on with great
rapidity. By March 1880 the line had
been opened to Tindharia, and Lord
Lytton, the first Viceroy to visit
Darjeeling, was conveyed so far by
the Company. Before the end of that
year the line was complete to
Kurseong, and in July 1881 it was
opened for traffic right through to
Darjeeling. The name of the Company
was then changed to the more
dignified appellation of the
"Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
Company". Messrs. Gillanders
Arbuthnot & Co., one of the leading
and oldest firms in Calcutta, were
appointed agents of the Company from
its inception.
In the first instance the alignment
of the railway followed that of the
cart road throughout, but it soon
became apparent that some of the
grades on the road were very much
steeper than the locomotives could
manage without great waste of power.
Therefore a ruling gradient of 1 to
25 had been aimed at by the
engineers of the Company though in
places a gradient of 1 to 20 still
exits, hence we find that the
railway at times leaves the road
altogether and at other times
attains a different alignment by
means of "Loops" and "Reverses".
Here it may be stated that in the
"loop" the railway track circles
round and passes over itself by a
bridge, thereby quickly attaining a
higher elevation and an immediately
better alignment. In the "reverse"
the same object is obtained by
running the track back diagonally up
the hill-side for a short distance,
and then again resuming an alignment
parallel to the original alignment
but higher up the side of the
mountain.
The engine originally employed was
very small even for a two-foot
track, and was only capable of
drawing a load of about 7 tons. But
later on it was improved to the
standard type which was able to draw
a load of 35 tons up the improved
track.The original passenger vehicle
was a small four-wheeled trolley
with canvas roof and two wooden
benches for seats, but some years
later bogie railway stock was
introduced. New workshops were
opened at Tindharia in 1914, and all
rolling-stock built in the workshops
with the exception of the wheels
which are imported.
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