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The NH55 stretch at Tindharia after the cave-in, inspection by Japanese team - by DarjeelingTimes.com.
Siliguri, Jan. 27: A team of around 20 experts from Japan will inspect the landslide-affected stretches of NH55 next month to assess the damage and recommend restoration methods to the Centre.
The team comprising geo-technical, landslide and highway experts will provide the suggestions to the Union ministry of surface transport and roadways for the repair of two major breaches at Tindharia and Paglajhora.
“The Centre had sought technical expertise from the Japanese government regarding the repair of the highway that caves in at many spots frequently. A team of around 20 experts from Japan will inspect the landslide-hit stretches of NH55 at Tindharia and Paglajhora on February 13. They will also be accompanied by the officials from the ministry,” said Nirmal Mondal, executive engineer NH (division IX) of the state public works department.
Tindharia is 30km from Siliguri and Paglajhora is further 5km uphill.
Traffic along the Siliguri-Kurseong section of the highway has been suspended after 500 meters of the road had collapsed at Paglajhora in June 2010. The route was opened for light vehicles in April last year but again shut in June after the rainy season began. Although the restoration was in progress, the stretch suffered extensive damage during the September 18 earthquake.
Ten days after the quake, a 150-metre-stretch of the highway at Tindharia, too, caved in. The repair of the road at Paglajhora has been stalled since the earthquake and the restoration of the highway at Tindharia didn’t begin either.
“The Japanese experts will hold a discussion with us after the inspection and offer technical advice to the ministry. The restoration will begin only after the experts give the suggestions,” said Mondal.
Before the disruption, NH55 that is also called Hill Cart Road was used mostly by heavy vehicles. They were, however, diverted through Mirik and Mungpoo after the cave-in at Paglajhora in 2010. With the diversion of the route, the vehicles had to travel two hours extra to reach Darjeeling from Siliguri. The usual time for the travel along NH55 is three hours.
But Rohini Road —connecting Siliguri to Kurseong via Simulbari — meant for light vehicles became a thoroughfare for heavy vehicles to save cost and time. The Rohini Road also became unsuitable for traffic and has been closed for the repair since December 7.
DHR to shed Vestibule coaches by DarjeelingTimes.com - 22 January 2012
Siliguri, Jan. 20: The railways have dropped the plan to introduce vestibule coaches in toy trains as they have difficulty in manoeuvring sharp curves and all efforts to solve the glitch have failed.
The 10 vestibule coaches brought from Pune two years ago will be converted into regular compartments that have been successfully ferrying passengers along the 80km long serpentine tracks for the past 130 years.
This is the second time that an attempt to introduce a new technology in the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has failed. A move to replace steam engines with oil-fired locomotives to run the toy trains was abandoned in 2002 as it was not suitable for the tracks.
“We had tried to introduce vestibule coaches as a new attraction for tourists. But the plan had to be abandoned as the coaches could not bend on the sharp curves on the tracks between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling,” a DHR official told The Telegraph.
The DHR had brought the vestibule coaches from the Kurdavari railway coach factory in Pune in August 2009. The two-and-a-half-feet long vestibules (corridors) enable passengers to walk from one coach to another while the train moves. The vestibules had come with glass ceilings through which passengers could get a view of the hills above. Besides, each coach has an airbrake also. The existing compartments of the toy trains are not connected to each other and passengers have to disembark from one coach to board another.
Right from the first trial run in 2009, the coaches could not negotiate the bends when the train climbed uphill to Rongtong after leaving the plains of Sukna. Although modifications were made to fix the glitch, the problem persisted. The coaches had been kept at the DHR loco shed in Siliguri Junction since then.
“The coaches tend to jerk when they encounter the curves. We cannot put travellers at risk by introducing these coaches for regular runs. So, we decided to remove the vestibules and convert the coaches into regular ones that are currently running on the DHR tracks,” said the official.
A few years ago, the Unesco heritage railway had to discard another technology to run the toy trains. Oil-fired engines were brought in to replace steam locomotives to save cost and time, but they were found unsuitable for the uphill rails. Two oil-fired engines were brought in 2002 and after all efforts to modify them failed, they were turned into steam locomotives in 2009.
The DHR authorities admitted that it would suffer losses because of the unsuitability of the vestibule coaches for the hill tracks.
“Since the vestibule coaches don’t serve the purpose of the hill railway, we have to convert them into regular ones. We need to spend some money for that. In that way, it is a loss for the DHR,” said a DHR official. He said the coaches would be configured after the railway budget of the next fiscal was passed in Parliament.
Hills ‘almost full’ for Christmas - Bookings in Darjeeling hotels double after ‘peace’ pact
by VIVEK CHHETRI, Telegraph India. Darjeeling, Dec. 23:
Bookings in Darjeeling hotels have doubled this year for the Christmas-New Year calendar.
The hotels are “almost full” and the hills are expecting nearly 30,000 tourists, twice the number that visited the region in 2010.
Credit goes to the political stability that has come with the signing of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration pact in July and to the local administration and hoteliers who have been quick to cash in on it with bashes and shows special for Christmas and New Year.
For tourists, gone are the fears of being left stranded because of a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha bandh call and holidays interrupted by protests and demonstrations. Instead, “smile, Darjeeling, smile” — a phrase coined by actress Mahima Chaudhary during the ongoing tea festival — is on the lips of locals and tourists alike.
“Peace and stability have returned to the hills and so have the tourists,” said Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri. “There is a festive spirit in Darjeeling this year. It is good to see so many tourists in the hills.”
Sangay Tshering, the president of the Janmukti Hotel Owners’ Association, said: “The bookings at the hotels affiliated to our association are almost double than that of last year. In 2010, about 16,000 tourists visited Darjeeling in winter. This year it is almost double. The bookings in hotels indicate that there will be about 25,000 to 30,000 tourists in Darjeeling for the Christmas-New Year vacation.”
He said the projected occupancy rate in the Darjeeling hotels during this season is 70 per cent.
Tashi Pencho, owner of Hotel Seven Seventeen and a member of the association, said bookings in the top and middle-level hotels were “almost full”. “It is only the low budget hotels that have rooms to spare in Darjeeling,” Pencho said.
Ranajit Ghosh, who has come from Calcutta with his family, said: “The uncertainty of a sudden bandh has lifted from Darjeeling and we could come to the hills without any fear. There is peace and I know that the political climate here will not lead to disruption of our holidays.”
Such is the lure of Darjeeling this year that tourists have braved the bad roads and have taken a circuitous route via Rohini to reach the hills. Rohini road is dotted with craters and the black top has come off exposing the dirt beneath. The Rohini road branches off from NH55 near Simulbari tea estate, 15km from Siliguri, and joins the highway a little before Kurseong town. With Hill cart Road or NH55 closed for one-and-a half years because of landslide induced damage at two points, vehicles bound for Darjeeling and Kurseong are travelling via Rohini.
“The national highway is in a very bad shape and tourists have to take the longer and more expensive Rohini route. But despite that, so many tourists have landed up. This is very good news for Darjeeling,” a Morcha leader said.
What has stoked up the holiday spirit is the clear weather and the many attractions lined up for Christmas and New Year by the local administration and the hotels.
Mistletoes always bloom in the hills at this time and shops and hotels are ready with turkeys and stuffed goose. But this time, after a gap of five years, carol singing has been revived. And for the first time, an 8ft-tall Christmas tree will be set up at the Mall.
“The Darjeeling Christian community will sing carols at the Chowrasta tomorrow evening, while the members of the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre and a Darjeeling based band Parichay will perform on Christmas Day,” said Suprina Blone, assistant director of the state’s information and cultural affairs department.
The organisers of the Darjeeling Tea and Tourism Festival along with the forest department are working to set up the Christmas tree at the Mall or the Chowrasta, the hill town’s famous promenade. “We are trying to get in touch with the forest officials to set up the Christmas tree near the statue of Bhanu Bhakta on Christmas Day,” said Uday Mani Pradhan, general secretary of the festival’s organising committee.
The hotels have lined up their individual events. Windamere Hotel has brought singers from Australia for Anything Goes — a special show named after a song by American composer Cole Porter. “Two artists, Danny Bourne and Hetty Kate from Australia, will be performing at the Windamere till January 1, starting from this evening,” said Elizabeth Clarke, executive director of the hotel.
The Elgin is ready with traditional Christmas fares.
“Roasted lamb and chicken with brandy sauce, plum puddings along with ham and sausages is what we have this year. We had received bookings for Christmas almost a year ago,” said Diamond Oberoi, owner of Elgin. The hotel has brought Patrick, a singer from Mauritius, for the Christmas bash.
“Bonfires are ready to keep the chill away,” said Oberoi.
For the Catholics of the hills, this year’s Xmas coincides with the golden jubilee year of the Darjeeling Diocese. “We are celebrating the golden jubilee of the Darjeeling Diocese. We are planning a grand Xmas mass at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception tomorrow. We are also organising prem bhoj in churches across the hills,” said Father Alex Gurung, spokesperson for the Diocese.
After quake, perched atop a cave-in, topple fear for toy train workshop
by MRINALINI SHARMA The Telegraph, Calcutta. 3rd October 2011
Siliguri, Oct. 2: The almost 100-year-old toy train workshop at Tindharia after suffering 30 cracks in the earthquake is now perched precariously — just 200 metres above a recent cave-in where the ground had disappeared along with the road.
The cave-in had occurred on Wednesday, 10 days after the quake, and a portion of NH55 along with the toy tracks was washed away when the landslide struck followed by heavy rainfall.
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR), which is in charge of the toy train, had been worried about the 30 cracks in the Tindharia workshop building, 30km from here. Around 60 metres of the boundary wall on the rear of the workshop, too, had collapsed in the earthquake. The recent cave-in, just below the right side of the building, has now added to the worry.
“The workshop is an old structure established almost 100 years ago. There were already 30 cracks on the wall and the floor, some of them two-inches wide. Now after the cave-in, the problem has aggravated. The vertical distance between the road and the workshop is just 200 metres. Another bout of heavy rainfall may cause the slope in between as well as the damaged portion of the workshop to collapse,” said R.P. Singh, the assistant divisional mechanical engineer at the Tindharia workshop.
The workshop that was established in 1915 is famous for having manufactured many toy train locomotives in the past. Among them are loco 42, named Tindharia and built in 1919, number 43, which was called Kurseong and made in 1923, and number 44 christened Darjeeling and manufactured in 1925. Now, the workshop with its 90 employees who are mainly local people, only repairs steam locos and coaches. The damaged portion of the building comprises a wheel shop where wheels of the toy trains are made and repaired. The DHR officials alleged that although the Northeast Frontier Railway’s headquarters in Assam’s Malegaon had been intimated, there has been no specific instruction yet on the relocation of the wheel shop.
“A team of NFR engineers had inspected the workshop. But we have not received any instruction on relocating the wheel shop to a safer site in the workshop. We cannot initiate the relocating process on our own since the machinery is heavy. No restoration work has started either,” a DHR official said.
Green light for Ghoom revamp by OUR CORRESPONDENT, The Telegraph, Calcutta
Ready for facelift -
Siliguri, Jan. 3 2011: The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has opened an expression of interest for renovating the toy train museum at Ghoom, the country’s highest rail station that will also be revamped.
Railway minister Mamata Banerjee had announced Rs 5 crore for repairing the museum during her visit in Darjeeling in September last year. The DHR authorities said now that the nod has come from the Railway Board, the process of floating tenders has started.
“The proposal for renovation was sent to the Railway Board and we recently opened an EOI after receiving the nod from them. We are now waiting for agencies to apply. Once the agency is selected, we will discuss various concepts and chart out a plan for the modification and additions that need to be made at the Ghoom museum,” said P.P. Roy, the director of the DHR.
The railway minister had announced a host of packages for the hill railway including the renovation of the museum during her last visit to north Bengal. She had also visited the museum and had said it would be named after Nepali poet Bhanu Bhakta. The museum is among the three on the DHR and was inaugurated in November 2000. The other two museums are at Sukna station and Elysia Building, the DHR headquarters at Kurseong.
“The funds will also be utilised to revamp Ghoom station,” said Roy. Ghoom is the highest station of the Indian Railways at 2,257.65 metres.
“At the museum, there will be audio-visual displays of DHR history, slide shows and automated kiosks to inform people about the hill train. We intend to discuss more concepts with the agency involved and chart out the final plan.”
The renovation, tour operators say, is likely to increase the flow of visitors to the museum, popular for its exhibits that include ancient artefacts, items donated by former DHR employees and rare photographs of the toy train.
One of the oldest displays at the museum is the Baby Sivok, an engine touted the oldest of the Unesco World Heritage Railway.
“This is a good initiative by the railways and it will increase the popularity of Ghoom station. We expect the tourist inflow to increase once the renovation is complete,” said a Siliguri-based tour operator.
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