Toy Train to Shimla

In the midst of all the Winter Day excitement, Rachel

Anuja and Rachel

had a birthday and we celebrated it with two (yes 2) cakes. 

Rachel and 2 cakes

Rachel and Anuja’s present and awesome shawl

So a quick day on Monday to get all the pieces I wanted fired organized for a bisque firing on Tuesday, which unfortunately we will not be here for as we are all heading off for a day trip to Shimla. This was brought forward due to Katrine leaving Friday so we needed to get things done bisque and glazed before she left.

Tuesday morning at 3:30am the alarm goes off and we all troop out to the front gate at 4pm to get into our Uber ride to Kalka to get on our train. One of the first drivers who actually sticks to the speed limit. 

Did you know that in Chandigarh there are red flashing LED's on both sides of the motorway showing the edges.

At around 5 we arrive at Kalka after driving through the pouring rain and head off to try and find our train. 

Entrance to Kalka Railway Station

Again have to scan our bags through security.

Bag scan at Kalka Railway Station

Once on the platform we headed towards Platform 6, but went the wrong way and found the over bridge under construction, so headed all the way back

Platform 1 Kalka Railway Station

Kalka (note time)

Railway engine Kalka

and found that we didn’t have to go far

Kalka Shimla Railway display

Pt 2 of Kalka Shimla Railway display

as the train to Shimla

Our ride up the hill

Kalka Shimla Toy Train

First Class all the way!

is a narrow gauge of 2ft 6” (NZ is 3ft 6”) and has a separate line.

Indian Railways currently has four different gauges: the 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge, the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge, and two narrow gauges 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) and 2 ft (610 mm)

Shimla or Queen of The Hills was established as the summer capital of the British Empire in 1863 but the issue was accessibility as the only way there was by bullock cart. So in 1903 the Kalka to Shimla railway was opened. The current Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon was on that first train.

The track has 20 picturesque stations, 103 tunnels, 912 curves, 969 bridges and 3% slope (1:33 gradient). The 1,143.61 m Bagot tunnel at Barog immediately before the Barog station is longest, a 60 ft (18.29m) bridge is the longest and the sharpest curve has a 123 ft (38 m) radius of curvature. The train has an average speed of 25–30 km/hr Which is why it takes 4 1/2 hours to traverse the 96km of track.

It was dark as we left the station so didn’t get to see much apart from the occasional level crossing with trucks and cars waiting and rear of buildings. It wasn’t long before we started to climb out of the city

View from the train

and into the hills. 

Town nestled into the curve

Trees in the forest

There is a lot of forrest on the hills and when the sun rose you could see just how high we were and how steep the hills are.

Looking down one of the many valleys

Precariously balanced

A snack was served not far into the journey, a cup of tea with two round wine type biscuits.

Early morning snack, excuse the blur

At the halfway station of Barog breakfast was loaded onto the train

Breakfast

and we had a chance to stretch our legs. 

Katrine at the doorway

Rachel and Kyle on a walkabout at Barog

Barog Station with the longest tunnel in background

Underway again we continued to climb and twist our way up the hills. It was amazing to pass the same place sometimes three times, each time at a higher level as we zigzagged our way upwards.

Perched on the side of the hill

Same town different height

And again

It was very difficult to catch the view as the auto focus on both my phone and camera was enough of a delay that by the time the picture was taken a tree was in the way! 

Trees get in the way!

Breakfast was served at some point on the trip.... two vege rolls (very tasty) with a nice sauce and two pieces of bread with butter and jam. 

Breakfast

At around 11am we arrived at Shimla Station

Shimla Railway Station

Shimla Railway Station

Shimla Railway Station Points House

Turntable for engines Shimla Railway Station

Looking down on Shimla Railway Station

and what an amazing place it was. Clean and tidy to a fault.

Very clean and tidy

On posting the pics to FaceBook, friends commented around “Are you sure you are in the right place”, “Not the India I remember” and similar. 

We then wended our way

Heading up to The Mall

Revers view from the above picture

towards The Mall, which is the main upmarket shopping street

Map of Shimla

and on the way came across numerous lookout points

Looking towards the northwest

Looking northerly

View to the north

and it became pretty obvious that this was a university city, loads of university students, heads down on their phones. 

Students....

There were heaps of monkeys on the roofs

Mother and baby

Grey Langur Monkey

and in the street,

Rhesus Macaque

as we headed for the Mall.

The Mall is essentially a road in Shimla with shops on one side

Looking towards The Mall

and walls on the other. I saw that there were sleeping dogs halfway up these walls with no apparent way up or down.

Dogs everywhere

These dogs were everywhere!

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie....

We paused at The Wake and Bake

Wake & Bake view from the 3rd floor

for coffee and a bite to eat.

Updating FaceBook

I had a very good coffee and a vege omelette which tasted much better

Vegetable Omelette

than it looked. The eggs are very pale here and the butter and cream are white. Couldn’t get across the fact that NZ butter and cream are yellow and cream coloured. 

On going to the washroom I was confronted by the open window overlooking the next door roof. Nice view while seated! 

Room with a view 4th floor

While we were paused there was a film crew setting up in the area below us.

Film Crew in Shimla Square

They were using a Red camera on a gymbal mount.

There were some interesting statues on the Mall. This one Is labeled The Dancers but I cannot find out much about it. 

There are

The Dancers

interesting signs all around the city “No smoking”, “No spitting”, “No plastic bags”, “Keep Shimla Clean” and it all works.

No Smoking ₹200 fine

No Plastic Bags ₹5,000 fine 

So clean and tidy, rubbish bins everywhere

The place is amazingly clean and tidy. 

So shopping with the girls was interesting and loads of scarves, shawls, and wraps purchased. Food was high on the priority list as well, with a great assortment of sweets tried and all were wonderful. Especially a hot Channa Puli.

Channa Puli

A hot sweet in syrup that resembles an elongated donut hole.

Unfortunately by this stage it had started to rain which put a bit of a dampener on the day as it became very very cold. If it had been much colder i believe it would have been snow! 

and the rain came.....

We had been trying to book seats on the bus back to Chandigarh all day but none of us had been successful and when I tried again our bus was full and wasn’t available any more so we decided to pull the plug and wander back to the train and get the next train home. The couple of things left on the list involved going to the giant statue of Hanuman Ji

Hanuman Ji statue at top of ridge, gondola to left

and a trip to The Ridge. Both involved the views which by this time were non-existent. 

Following Google Maps back to the railway station was an interesting time, we actually found a really cool part of town

Cool part of town with rain!

More interestingness 

with some amazing shops and stalls, food, clothing, everything you can imagine and then some.Tiny shops racked and stacked cheek by jowl and all scrambling to protect their wares from the rain. 

still more rain and interestingness

We realized just how far we had travelled when Google Maps told us that we were 35 mins away from the railway station!! So it was a 35 min walk in what’s was now pretty heavy rain, dodging umbrellas, people running and growing puddles and rivers of water flowing off the roves and awnings.

Walkway overhanging the drop off...cantilevered

On our arrival at the station we headed to the window and managed to get tickets eventually and the price was ₹200 so we all hauled out our ₹200s each but were told ‘Nayhee it is ₹200 for all 4 of us.’ Now on the way up the price was ₹2235.40 for 5 of us. Ellen had booked a return train earlier so it was just the four of us and it was ₹50 each for the return trip. Granted it was in general class, but it wasn’t that much worse than the first class trip up, apart from being bloody cold!

Interesting meal before heading homeward

Also the train stopped at all 20 stations,

East Shimla at night

complete with hot food vendors, popcorn and snack vendors two of whom nearly came to grief as the train started moving and they were late getting on. The screams were luckily heard by everyone and the door was opened and they scrambled themselves into the train. One of them looked like he had possibly been injured but he shrugged it off.

Barog Stationmaster

So we all dozed, read, listened to audio books for the nearly 6 hour trip back.

Reminds me of the NZ film The Navigator

Heading homeward

On arrival at Kalka it was persisting down and luckily our Uber driver was waiting for us and we all piled in for the return trip to Aura. Arrival was around 1:30am so a huge day.

I have decided that I would like to return to Shimla and have a really good look around the other layers of shops and visit the statue riding in the gondola. Maybe later in Dec when there is snow up there.

Signing off for now and will get the next post up asap! Am behind by at least 1!

सुरक्षित यात्रा

surakshit yaatra

Safe travels