The 88 km Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Reaches 2,258 Metres on a 2 ft Track Through Six Zigzag Reverses and Three Loops, and UNESCO Listed It in 1999

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway runs 88.48 km from New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling on track only 2 ft (610 mm) wide, and UNESCO’s listing says it passes through Ghoom (Ghum in IRCTC’s spelling) at 2,258 metres. On 4 September 2026 the Millennium Post reported that one diesel passenger pair still runs between New Jalpaiguri, Kurseong and Darjeeling, with diesel and steam joyrides on the short stretch between Darjeeling and Ghum.

Five or six days became under 24 hours

ICOMOS, the body that evaluated the line for UNESCO in 1999, ties it to tea. Calcutta had been linked by rail to Siliguri in 1878, the tea industry around Darjeeling had grown, and the road up the hill could no longer cope with the traffic. Franklin Prestage, an agent of the Eastern Bengal Railway, submitted a detailed proposal for a steam railway. India’s nomination file, which ICOMOS summarises, says the trip from Calcutta to Darjeeling had taken five to six days and fell to under 24 hours.

The contract changed shape first. According to the FIBIS wiki, which draws on India Office records, Prestage’s scheme of 1878 won the sanction of Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Then the Public Works Department held that Bengal had exceeded its powers. In 1879 Prestage formed the Darjeeling Steam Tramway Company, and a revised contract limited the line to 2 ft gauge.

Construction began in 1879, reached Tindharia in March 1880 and Kurseong by the end of that year, and reached Darjeeling in July 1881, IRCTC Tourism says. FIBIS gives 23 August 1880 for the opening of Siliguri to Kurseong and 4 July 1881 for the official opening to Darjeeling. The company took the name Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway Company on 15 September 1881.

The design drew on the Festiniog Railway in Wales, ICOMOS says. The Government of India bought the railway in October 1948 and Northeast Frontier Railway has managed it since 1958.

Six reverses, three loops and a road it keeps crossing

ICOMOS counts six reverses and three loops. In a zigzag reverse the train changes direction to gain height, and the steepest gradient on the line, 1 in 18, is on the reverses. UNESCO’s own summary gives the ruling gradient as 1 in 31. Curves make up 73% of the line’s length, ICOMOS adds, and the line crosses the Hill Cart Road, the road it follows, at 170 level crossings.

The counts differ by page. IRCTC Tourism gives the length as 87.48 km, a kilometre less than UNESCO, and lists five reverses. It adds that 64 km of the line share a roadbed with the Hill Cart Road. We could not tell which count the railway itself prefers.

Google Arts and Culture’s DHR story names the three loops. Chunbati has the first. Tindharia has the second, also called Agony Point, and the third and most famous is Batasia, which looks over Darjeeling from Batasia Hill. Between Ghum and Darjeeling, according to ICOMOS, Batasia is where IRCTC Tourism says the joyride train stops so passengers can photograph Kanchenjunga. No railway record for the year Batasia was built turned up in our search.

ICOMOS wrote that the line was “the first hill railway anywhere in the world” and that the combination of narrow gauge and zigzag reverses was the first of its kind, claims we cannot check independently.

Ghum, where the climbing stops

Ghum sits at 2,258 metres, the figure in both UNESCO’s text and the ICOMOS evaluation. ICOMOS called it the second highest railway station in the world in 1999. IRCTC Tourism phrases it as the second highest station in the world reached by steam locomotive. We did not check whether either ranking still holds.

From Ghum the line falls to Darjeeling past Batasia. Google Arts and Culture says steam engines worked only the 8 km between Ghum and Darjeeling when it published its story in 2018, taking an hour.

The B class engines and the Tindharia shop

The small steam engines are the B class, introduced from 1889, according to Google Arts and Culture. Its story describes 788B as built in 1913 by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow, with a 0-4-0 wheel arrangement for the 2 ft track. Engine 792B, built in 1917 by Baldwin in Philadelphia, is the only surviving B class made in the United States, the same story says.

UNESCO’s summary says the surviving original engines, the B class among them, have been maintained. Major repairs happen at the Tindharia workshop, completed in 1925 after 12 years of building, Google Arts and Culture says, and preceded by a smaller set-up from 1881.

UNESCO in 1999, then two more railways

A UNESCO news release of 2 December 1999 says the committee, meeting in Marrakesh since 29 November, inscribed 48 new sites, among them the DHR. The release calls the line “the first, and still the most outstanding, example of a hill passenger railway.” Criteria (ii) and (iv) applied, which cover its influence on social and economic development and its place in 19th-century railway history.

The committee’s decision text adds two details. India’s observer told the members that this was the first industrial heritage site in Asia to be inscribed. Both ICOMOS and the observer assured them that steam trains would stay in use because tourists value them.

ICOMOS proposed a special heritage unit within Indian Railways and an environmental management plan, and noted that the line had no buffer zone. Inscription was not made conditional on any of these. Abandoning the working railway, ICOMOS wrote, would call its World Heritage value into question.

Boundary changes in 2005 and 2008 appear on UNESCO’s page, and the site is now called the Mountain Railways of India. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Kalka-Shimla Railway are those additions. UNESCO’s current summary text says the Darjeeling line still lacked an endorsed conservation management plan, while the other two had plans.

What runs now, and what it costs

As of 4 September 2026, the Millennium Post says, the regular service is one diesel pair between Darjeeling, Kurseong and New Jalpaiguri, plus four diesel joyrides between Darjeeling and Ghum. ETV Bharat reported in June 2026 that 13 joyrides ran daily at ₹1,310 on steam and ₹800 on diesel, that many tourists were booking nearly two months ahead, and that two evening joyrides were planned.

For the Puja season Northeast Frontier Railway announced six extra joyrides from 1 October 2026, per the Morung Express on 26 August. Four diesel trips leave Darjeeling at 9:20 am and 11:25 am and Ghum at 10:25 am and 12:30 pm, at a proposed ₹800 a trip. Two round trips run between Kurseong and Mahanadi, the steam Red Panda at a proposed ₹1,530 and the diesel Mukta Dhara at ₹1,030. We could not confirm on 8 October that all of them are running, so confirm on IRCTC before booking.

A booking guide from Darjeeling Tourism says joyrides are sold on IRCTC with Darjeeling (DJ) as the origin and DJRZ as the destination, and that booking opens 60 days ahead. It says the full diesel run from New Jalpaiguri takes about 7 hours 30 minutes. IRCTC’s and the railway’s own sites would not load for us, so treat the fares and timings here as reported figures and not a timetable.

ETV Bharat reported in April 2026 that the railway carried 215,000 passengers (2.15 lakh) in 2025 to 2026, against 183,000 the year before, and took ₹25.38 crore, against ₹22.12 crore.

Closures, landslides and a collapsed shed

The longest recent closure ran from 5 July to 17 November 2024. ETV Bharat attributes it to landslides that damaged the track between Sukna and Kurseong.

On Friday 12 September 2025 a landslide put debris on the track between Rongtong and Tindharia, The Statesman reported on 14 September, and a railway official expected the full run to reopen on 16 September. The Tribune reported on 17 September that services, suspended for two days, would resume on the Thursday after the report. The Statesman added that the Kurseong to Darjeeling train and the Ghum joyrides kept running.

We found no report of a landslide closure in 2026 so far. On 2 September, though, part of the roof of the Darjeeling loco shed fell in heavy rain and injured seven railway workers, ETV Bharat reported. ETV Bharat says four joyrides were cancelled, while the Millennium Post says all seven were suspended. The Millennium Post adds that diesel services resumed on 3 September and steam was expected back on 5 September.