Muddy coal stops Darjeeling Himalayan Railway on tracks in hills

Darjeeling, March 26: A Darjeeling Himalayan Railway toy train stopped midway today because coal with a higher mud content had been shoved into the engine.

In recent times, the joy rides operated by the century-old DHR have been frequently disrupted for one reason or the other, leaving visitors as well as tour operators livid at the way the services are conducted.

So much so that the Darjeeling Association of Travel Agents today asked the railways to “completely shut down the services if they cannot maintain the heritage property”.

The 10D train hauled by a steam engine left Darjeeling for Kurseong at 10.15am, but it could not proceed beyond Bokshijhora in Dali, about 3km from the terminal point.

“The steam engine is propelled by coal. However, when the coal was dropped in the engine, the fire itself got doused as the amount of mud was more than the fuel,” said a source.

As Dali is at a higher elevation than the Darjeeling railway station, the train could return to the starting point. Because of the coal with inferior quality, the DHR cancelled the other two rides also.

“A steam engine can haul three bogies, but only two are attached nowadays because of adulterated coal,” said a tour operator. A standard compartment carries 24 passengers who shell out Rs 240 each for a two-hour ride.

The DHR officials at the Darjeeling station refused comment on the incident.

Sources, however, said seven tonnes of “poor quality coal” are presently lying at the railway station. “Coal is brought from the Siliguri Junction as and when the stock is used up,” he said. Last month, the steam service had come to a halt because of coal shortage. Around 3.2 tonnes of coal are needed a day

Not that just coal is halting the services.

Two days ago, a ride was delayed because of lack of water. “It was 1pm when the 10.40am train left the station. There was no water at the railway station and officials were seen pumping water from private tankers. The Darjeeling loco shed does not have even a proper water storage facility,” said the source.

Around 2,000 litres of water are required for each ride. “Even the refilling outlet at West Point Water Column near Dali has no constant source to fill up the tanks,” said an official.

Pradip Tamang, the secretary of the Darjeeling Association of Travel Agents, said: “We are fed up with the DHR services. At times they don’t have enough water to run the engines, while on other occasions, they do not have coal. This time, the quality of coal was so bad that the engines cannot be fired. The government should completely shut down the services if they cannot maintain this heritage property.”

“A chartered service from Siliguri to Darjeeling was delayed by almost four hours in December because of water shortage at Rongtong station,” added Tamang.

The DHR services are affected for days, sometimes even weeks, by landslides during the monsoon. Frequent bandhs called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha also hit the rides.

R.K. Roy, additional divisional mechanical engineer (Tindharia), admitted that the coal supplied to the DHR was lacking propulsion. Asked if the stock would be replaced, he said: “I cannot say anything. We just hope that the trains can run tomorrow as we will try to mix rock-like coal with the powdered coal that has been recently supplied to run the engine.”

However, there was no sight of solid coal in Darjeeling. “All the lumps of coal that we had have already been used. That is why we faced problems today,” said a railway employee.

Source: The Telegraph