Model Train Hobby Collection Guide

More than 4,000 years ago, there were builders making bricks in northern India. Little did they dream, however, that those bricks would find their way into a gigantic network of railways on the Indian subcontinent.

INDIAN RAILWAYS is a giant system! Its trains are the main means of transport in India, a country with over a billion people. In addition to the normal daily travel of the population in general, India’s traditional culture requires that the millions who live away from their relatives make frequent journeys for family events, such as birth, death, festivals, marriage, or illness.

Every day, on an average, more than 8,350 trains ply some 50,000 miles [80,000 km] of running track, carrying over 12.5 million passengers. Freight trains haul goods in excess of 1.3 million tons. Together, each day these cover a distance equal to three and a half times the distance to the moon!

Think of 6,867 stations, 7,500 locomotives, more than 280,000 coaches and wagons, and a total track length of 67,000 miles [107,969 km] including sidings, and you will understand why Indian Railways needs to employ about 1.6 million people, the largest work force of any company in the world. Yes, a real giant!

How Was the Giant Born?

What motivated the building of railways in India? When did this vast project take off? And what about those 4,000-year-old bricks?—See the box: “Those Ancient Bricks”.

In the mid-19th century, India produced a large quantity of raw cotton, which was transported by road to ports for export. India, though, was not the main supplier of cotton to British textile mills; most of their cotton came from the Deep South in North America. However, the failure of the American cotton crop in 1846 followed by the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 created an urgent need for an alternative supply. India was the answer. But transport needed to be faster to keep England’s Lancashire mills rolling. The East India Railway Company (1845) and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (1849) were set up. Contracts were also signed with the English East India Company, the major traders on the Indian subcontinent. Work was rapid, and April 16, 1853, saw the first train in India travel down 21 miles [34 km] of track from the dock area known as Bori Bunder in Bombay (now Mumbai) to the town of Thane.
  
Those Ancient Bricks

During British rule (1757-1947), railways in the Indian subcontinent proved ideal for the movement of troops over long distances. Within three years of the inauguration of India’s first train, engineers were laying tracks between Karachi and Lahore in what is today Pakistan. Stone was not available for ballast to stabilize the tracks, but near the village of Harappa, workmen found kiln-baked bricks. Scottish engineers John and William Brunton felt that these would make a suitable and economical substitute. While workers were unearthing the huge brick deposits, clay statuettes and seals inscribed in an unknown language turned up, but this did not cause a break in the all-important work of building the railroad. One hundred miles [160 km] of track was built on Harappa bricks. Sixty-five years later, archaeologists systematically excavated the Harappa site, unearthing remains of the astounding Indus Valley civilization, which dates back more than 4,000 years, contemporary with ancient Mesopotamia!
 
To reach the cotton-producing hinterland from Bombay meant crossing the Western Ghats, a range of rugged mountains. British engineers and workers, along with thousands of Indian workers—sometimes 30,000 at one time—toiled without the benefit of modern technology. Using switchbacks for the first time in the world, they laid a track that included an ascent of 1,821 feet [555 m] in just 15 miles [24 km]. They dug 25 tunnels with a total length of 12,000 feet [3,658 m]. The Deccan plateau was reached, and the railway was in business. Work went on apace all over the country, spurred not only by trade but also by the need to move troops and personnel quickly as the British increased their interests in the subcontinent.

First-class train travel in the 19th century, for the few who could afford it, made the heat and dust bearable. A private carriage had a comfortable bed, toilet and bath, attendants to provide refreshments from morning tea through to evening dinner, a fan with a tub of ice under it for cooling, a barber, and stories from Wheeler’s Railway Library series, including the latest novels of Indian-born author Rudyard Kipling. Louis Rousselet, traveling in the 1860’s, said that he could “travel over this immense distance with comparatively little fatigue.”

The Giant Grows

By 1900, India’s railway network had become the fifth largest in the world. Locomotives—steam, diesel, and electric engines—and rolling stock including coaches, all of which were formerly imported, were now produced locally. Some of the engines were real behemoths—locomotives weighing up to 230 tons, electric engines of 6,000 horsepower, and a 123-ton diesel engine with 3,100 horsepower. In 1862 the world’s first double-decker train was introduced. India boasts the longest railway platform in the world, 2,733 feet [833 m], at Kharagpur in West Bengal, and the longest covered platforms, at 1,000 feet each, at Sealdah in Calcutta.

The first trains ran on broad-gauged tracks. Later, to save money, meter gauge was introduced along with narrow gauge for the hills. In 1992, Project Unigauge got under way, and to date almost 5,000 miles [about 7,800 km] of track has been converted from narrow and meter gauge to broad gauge.

Mumbai’s suburban trains carry millions of commuters and seem to be permanently packed beyond capacity. Calcutta’s underground metro can daily carry 1.7 million passengers. Chennai (formerly Madras) has India’s first elevated rail system. Computerized booking and multimedia information kiosks are recent additions. This is a very busy and progressive giant.

The Exhilarating “Toy Trains”

To escape the heat, the British colonists loved to go to the mountains. The prospect of getting there faster prompted the building of the mountain railways with their “toy trains.” Trips then became faster—that is, compared with going by horseback or being carried in a palanquin. For example, the “toy train” in south India takes its passengers into the Nilgiri Hills, or Blue Mountains. It averages 6.5 miles [10.4 km] per hour and is perhaps the slowest train in India. But what a journey this is, through the tea and coffee estates of the mountains up to Coonoor at 5,617 feet [1,712 m]! Built in the late 19th century, the track rises at a gradient of 1 in 12 and has 208 curves and 13 tunnels. It employs the Abt pinion-rack system. Rack bars like teeth act as a ladder that the engine climbs on, pushing the train from the back. This track is among the oldest and steepest in the world using rack and adhesion technology.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway climbs on tracks only two feet [610 mm] apart, at a gradient of 1 in 22.5, to Ghoom, India’s highest station, 7,408 feet [2,258 m] above sea level. The track has three spiral loops and six reversing zigzags. The most famous section, the Batasia loop, tempts passengers to jump out of the train, scramble up the grassy slopes, and board the train after it takes the curve. The exciting journey is climaxed with a view of Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world. In 1999 this railway was given World Heritage status by UNESCO, making its future more secure.

To reach Simla, which was India’s 7,100-foot-high [2,200 m] summer capital under British rule, the train goes through 102 tunnels, crosses 869 bridges, and rounds 919 curves in a stretch of just 60 miles [95 km]! One can see magnificent scenery through large windows and a transparent fiberglass roof. Yes, the “toy trains” are a real delight. Since the fares have been kept quite low, however, the mountain railways are unfortunately running at a loss. Railway buffs hope that a solution can be found to save these exhilarating trains.

The Long Haul

It has been said that the advent of the railway in India marked “the end of one era and the beginning of another” and that “the railway sewed India together as no other integration scheme has managed to do since.” How true! If you wish, you can board a train in Jammu, in the foothills of the Himalayas, and get off at Kanyakumari, India’s southernmost point, where the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal meet. You will have traveled 2,344 miles [3,751 km] through 12 states and spent about 66 hours on the train. Even with a sleeper berth, you might have spent less than $15 for your ticket. You will have had the opportunity to get acquainted with friendly, talkative people of many cultures and will have seen quite a lot of this fascinating country. Make your reservation—and happy traveling!

Some of the major railway lines

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