Taking a step towards electrification of the 120-year-old Kalka Shimla rail line, the railway authorities have hired an independent consultant to conduct a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) on the implications of the move. Documents accessed by The Indian Express reveal that the Divisional Railway Office in Ambala Cantt on April 26 had awarded the HIA project for the Unesco world heritage site to the New Delhi-based organisation Saving Traditional Arts, Materials & Built Heritage (STAMBH). The organisation will assess the key impacts of the electrification and will include details of the baseline conditions, consideration of the potential effects of the electrification where overall impacts are not considered to be significant, and a justification of why they should be "scoped out of the HIA” where overall impacts are considered to be potentially significant. A summary of the conditions present on the site and its environs, based on site surveys of Kalka-Shimla Rail line are also to be provided in the HIA. Earlier, the Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer in March had written to the Heritage Officer to expedite the HIA. “Detail Project Report (DPR) of proposal has been prepared by this office. Being a Heritage Officer of Ambala division you are requested to kindly arrange to expedite the submission of Heritage Impact Assesment (HIA) report for further submission to Railway Board for seeking approval of Unesco,” the letter read. Kalka-Shimla Railway is a 96.6 kilometer long, single narrow-gauge track (gauge 0.762 m) working rail link. The line was thrown open in November 1903, just about 12 years after Delhi railway line reached Kalka in 1891. The world's highest multi-arch gallery bridge and the world's longest tunnel (at the time of construction) are some of the key features of this rail line where regular service is provided by diesel-run engines and rail motor cars. There is one heritage steam locomotive that has been restored and is available for charter use for tourists. The line begins at Kalka at an altitude of 656 metres, rises to an intermediate plateau at an altitude of around 1,500 m, where it serves several stations, before climbing to the Himachal Pradesh's capital city at an altitude of 2,075 m. “The line has 988 bridges and viaducts, which represent 3 per cent of total line length. The largest bridges have multi-arch masonry galleries (74), sometimes in several levels, like Roman aqueducts. It has 917 curves, representing some 70 per cent of total length,” notes the Unesco write up on the railway track. The track initially had 107 tunnels, which were reduced by five following landslides. The total length of the tunnels represents eight per cent of the line's length. There are a large number of masonry retaining walls. From the geographical viewpoint, the line can be clearly divided into three parts with the first covering the stretch from Kalka to Kumar Hatti (1,579 m). The second part is horizontal or has a slightly negative gradient, at an altitude of around 1,500 m, as far as Kanda Ghat (1,433 m). The third part consists of the final climb to Shimla. The railway line has 21 stations, which include Kalka, Taksal, Gumman, Koti, Jabli, Sanwara, Dharampur, Kumarhatti, Barog, Solan, Solan Brewery, Salogra, Kandaghat, Kanoh, Kathleeghat, Shogi, Taradevi, Jutogh, Summer Hill, Shimla, Shimla Bazar. Unesco had awarded the heritage site status to Kalka-Shimla railway in July 2008.
