26/11/2015
Many stories told about the Shimla Kalka railway line, there is maybe none as interesting that of Bhalku Ram, who discovered the track. The story goes that he claimed that the trace the line should take, had been exposed to him by his deity. he would walk with a tall staff over the hills and it is said that even H. S. Harington, agent of the Railway was in be obliged of Bhalku,s `supernatural powers and always delayed to him.
The Kalka Shimla Railway Line is made-up to have been built on exactly the trace exposed by Bhalku. His status went back to the time when the Hindustan Tibet Road was under construction in the 1950. This road was possibly the first highway to be built after the Grand Trunk Road and is no a century and a half old.
It was just over a 100 years ago, over land that seen little more than a plough turn it, came a series of steam driven pile drivers, shovels and elaborated tunneling equipment. One of the worlds most difficult engineering feats was in progress the structure of the Kalka Shimla Railway Line. When complete, it would cover 96.54kms of hilly track and raise from Kalka at a close 640 meters far more cool and clean Shimla at 2060 meters originally, the estimate had been set at two feet, and on the suggestion of the military, this was extended to the standard two feet six inches norm of hill railways.
The ruling slope of the track is one in thirty three. The idea of a rail link to Shimla had been presented as early as November, 1847 by a journalist of the Delhi Gazette this was six years before the first train whistled through the Indian sub-continent running between Mumbai and Thane. Within two decades of this watching, Shimla had formally become the summer capital of British India and a amazing one-fifth of the human race began being ruled for the better part of the year from this tiny town and the tenuous telegraph.
The 19th century was at an end when work finally began on the line that would carry some of the most powerful people in this part of the world and add to the stable romance of railway travel. It was on 9 November 1903 that the line was opened to traffic as a link from the Delhi-Ambala-Kalka branch of the East Indian Railway.
The broad-gauge line and the out of breath giants ended at Kalka and then, littler locomotive and toy carriages took the thirty inch estimate firstly, there were 107 tunnels and in 1930, as some of them were out of use, they were renumbered to 103. Today, there are a 102 but fro civilization sake the line is still referred to have a 103-the figure it has had for most of its life there are eight hundred bridges and nine hundred curves and for the duration of its course through the charming natural features that characterize the lower reaches of the Himalaya, at times the line goes through a chain of reveres curves of over 36 meters radius. It is maybe, the tunnels and bridges that have given so much character to the line.
All the tunnels were built between 1900 and 1903. The longest one is at Barog and is over a kilometer long. An original configuration of the Barog tunnels was set about a kilometer above the obtainable one. Digging begin from both sides of the hill and after a fair amount of burrowing had been done, it was realized that the ends would never meet. The engineer, a Col. S. Barog was fined one rupee for the wastage. Unable a belly this, the tale continues, he try himself. The place and the place were then named after him. Today, above the place, in a undergrowth of oak and pine, the head of the old tunnel may still be seen.
