The end of a much-loved railway...

[caravanman]

Interesting article from Mark Tully in India:

The Satpura narrow-gauge network used to be the longest of its kind in India, stretching more than 1,000km (620 miles). But it is now facing closure, writes Mark Tully.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34910942

(There is another item at the foot of the page linking to Darjeeling Hill Railway.)

Ed.

 

[jis]

Here is my personal perspective on this, as I have lived for a few years in the area in question when I was a little kid.

Satpura Railway fell victim to the uni-gauge project and the desire to provide modern transport infrastructure to this backward area. What happened is the viable parts of it were converted to Broad Gauge, or are being so converted, and the rest is being retained as is. Looking at the Indian Railway Atlas 3rd Edition I see, that there is only one small branch that will remain NG. The rest in its entirety is getting converted to BG, and at least one trunk (Gondia - Chanda Fort) which has already been converted to BG is now getting electrified (25kV, 60Hz), as it provides a good freight by pass of the Nagpur area congestion. Nagpur is where the East-West Kolkata - Mumbai via Nagpur and the North-South New Delhi - Chennai trunks meet. The network that is or has been converted to BG, which consists of:

Gondia (on Kolkata - Mumbai via Nagpur route) - Naghbir - Chanda Fort (on New Delhi - Chennai trunk)

Gondia - Balaghat - Nainpur - Jabbalpur (on Kolkata - Mumbai via Allahabad route)

Balaghat - Katangi - Tirodi - (Tumsar Road on Kolkata - Mumbai via Nagpur route)

Nainpur - Mandla Fort

Nainpur - Chhindwara - (Amla on the New Delhi - Chennai trunk)

Chhindwara - Itwari(Nagpur)

Itwari (Nagpur) - Naghbir

Additional new BG lines to fill out the network in this backward area are being constructed as follows:

Sridham (on Kolkata - Mumbai via Allahabad route) - Seoni - Ramtek - (Kanhan/Nagpur)

(Nainpur) - Mandal Fort - Jabbalpur (on Kolkata - Mumbai via Allahabad route)

(Nainpur) - Mandla Fort - Bilaspur (on Kolkata - Mumbai via Nagpur route)

So all in all this is a massive infrastructure improvement project in an area that was so far very poorly served (no wonder the trains were overcrowded).

All this is sort of near and dear to me since in my very young days we lived in Bhilai, where back then the massive Hindustan Steel steel plant was being built back then) a little east of this area. This area was unbelievably under-developed and poor. It is good to see such massive investment in improving the lives of all these people.

 

[caravanman]

I agree that it is one thing to bemoan the passing of quirky and interesting items, as from a tourist perspective... and another to be daily forced to use old, crowded and uncomfortable transport. I support the upgrading of transport where ever it is needed, but feel sad at the passing of these oddities too.

Ed.

 

[jis]

Yeah. Fortunately a few small segments will be retained. This is better than what happened to Bardhaman - Katwa - Ahmedpur Light Railway in West Bengal, which had every bit of it converted to BG with nothing left of it. Same thing happened to the Martin Burn Light Railway in Howrah District. The Howrah Maidan - Amta lines got converted to electrified BG and integrated into the Kolkata Suburban EMU network.The Howrah Maidan - Sheakhala and Bargachhia - Champdanga sections simply got abandoned with a promise for replacement BG service, yet to be fulfilled. The Kalighat to Falta Light Railway is long gone and the Barasat - Barishat - Hasnabad line to the border of Bangladesh got replaced by electrified BG line integrated into the Kolkata Suburban EMU network.

Ny suspicion is that the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway will eventually get spun off as a separate operation from the Northeast Frontier Railway, to be operated as a Heritage Operation. It and the Kalka - Simla Lines will survive in some form or another though they are expensive to maintain on a shifting mountain with frequent landslides. I suspect the Pathankot - Joginernagar line will also be around for a while too.

 

[cirdan]

Ny suspicion is that the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway will eventually get spun off as a separate operation from the Northeast Frontier Railway, to be operated as a Heritage Operation. It and the Kalka - Simla Lines will survive in some form or another though they are expensive to maintain on a shifting mountain with frequent landslides. I suspect the Pathankot - Joginernagar line will also be around for a while too.

Would there be a precedent for that in India? Are there any independently / privately run railways (other than urban systems such as metros)?

I guess the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is already more or less run as a standalone system on the operational, technical and marketing side but benefits from being part of a larger system when it comes to regulatory clout. In a country with many small and independent lines, these can and do get together in and jointly pressure government when this looks likely to pass some laws that will make things more difficult for them. But being one of a kind there is a risk that you'll end up at thze mercy of some rule changes against which you won't have a voice.

 

[jis]

It would most likely continue to be under the Railway Board but as a subsidiary separate from NFR (Northeast Frontier Railway). The problem at present is that NFR management does not really have the time or an interest in solving DHR's problems since they have several other bigger fish to fry. That is the problem that is addressed by spinning it off as a separate subsidiary with a single mission. In some ways this would be similar to Kolkata Metro. Also it enables addition of external funding separate from that which comes from the Railway Board/ministry. Today such would get lost in NFR's huge byzantine accounting.

NFR at present is dealing with converting all its trunks to Broad gauge, extending or building several new lines in the border areas on Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim and West Bengal (the link eventually to Gangtok and into Bhutan, and extending electrification to Guwahati. All of these are enormous projects compared to running DHR (Darjeeling Himalayan Railway), and this is causing DHR to be neglected.

 

[neroden]

It's nice that they're regauging everything, but seriously, they made a bad call when they chose Indian Broad Gauge. It won't be long before they want to regauge everything to Standard Gauge to connect with China and Iran...

 

[jis]

Maybe. But there is no way that they were going to regauge the entire system to a third and currently nonexistent one in the subcontinent. When the time comes I think they will still not regauge the entire system they will just install dual gauge tracks on select routes and maybe not even that. We'll see what the business imperatives are at that point.

This BTW is what Bangladesh Railways has already done on some of their Meter Gauge trunk routes, by adding Broad Gauge as a second gauge on the same tracks. Their Meter Gauge network is too extensive for them to contemplate wholesale conversion. Their Broad Gauge network inherited from the British was much smaller than the Meter Gauge network. Meanwhile India has basically converted every inch of their Meter Gauge network in the north east to Broad Gauge, and are now furiously electrifying all the trunk routes in the north east.