‘Darjeeling Mail is one of the oldest running trains in India’

Kolkata: The 12343/12344 Sealdah-Haldibari-Sealdah Darjeeling Mail, which has been running since pre-Independence days, is one of the oldest running trains in India, Eastern Railway shared.

The ER authorities shared the gripping history of how the present-day railway route of the historic Darjeeling Mail came into being.

In 1878, the railway route from Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, to Siliguri was covered in two laps.

The first lap was 184.9 kilometres long along the Eastern Bengal State Railway from the then Calcutta Station (which is now called Sealdah) to Damookdeah Ghat on the Southern bank of Padma River.

The passengers would then cross the river by availing a ferry. The second lap of the journey was the 363.1 kilometres metre-gauge line of the North Bengal Railway that linked Saraghat on the northern bank of the Padma to Siliguri. Later the 1.8 kilometres long Hardinge Bridge across the Padma River was set up in 1912.

In 1916, the metre-gauge section north of the bridge was converted to broad gauge. The route ran from Sealdah the route went via Ranaghat, Bheramara, Hardinge Bridge, Haldibari, and Jalpaiguri to Siliguri. Even after India gained independence, this route was followed for some years.

After 1947 with the partition of India, the major hurdle in the connection between Kolkata and Siliguri was that there was no bridge across the Ganges in Bengal or Bihar.

A generally acceptable route to Siliguri was via Sahibganj loop to Rajmahal, then across the Ganges by ferry to Manihari Ghat on the other side, then to Kishanganj via Manihari, Katihar and Barsoi and finally through narrow gauge to Siliguri.

In 1949 Kishanganj–Siliguri section too was converted to a metre gauge. In the early 1965s, when the Farakka Barrage was being constructed, a more radical change was made. Indian Railways created a new broad-gauge rail link from Kolkata, and on a Greenfield site south of Siliguri Town built an entirely new broad-gauge junction.

The 2, 256.25-metre long Farakka Barrage carries a rail-cum-road bridge across the Ganges. The rail bridge was thrown open to the public in 1971, thereby linking the Barharwa – Azimganj – Katwa loop to Malda Town, Barsoi, Kishanganj, New Jalpaiguri and other railway stations in North Bengal. Since then Darjeeling Mail has been using the Howrah – New Jalpaiguri line.