Ever since it was accorded the status of a world heritage site by the UNESCO in 2008, the Kalka-Shimla Railway has attracted a steady stream of foreigners — mostly from the UK — who have been chartering trains to get a first-hand feel of the history associated with this mountain railway set up by the British and thrown open to transport in 1903. The chartered train whose two coaches derailed on the Kalka-Shimla Railway on September 12, killing two UK tourists and injuring several others, was the 19th chartered operation on the famous toy train route this year and railway officials said another 29 chartered trips are pending for this financial year. “Around 50 chartered train trips were conducted on the KSR in 2014-15 while 2013-14 witnessed 32 chartered trips. Our records show that most foreigners who undertook these trips were UK nationals,” said an official of Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which facilitates chartering of trains on Indian Railways. [related-post] IRCTC officials added that the private travel agency involved in getting this train chartered has guaranteed to undertake 48 trips on this route in the current fiscal year with each trip having at least 40 passengers. IRCTC officials said chartering a train on KSR for 40 passengers costs around Rs 75,000 and experience gathered in recent years shows that there are enough takers, particularly among the British, for these chartered operations. Saturday’s derailment though could act as a dampener, the officials admitted. “A prompt probe fixing exact responsibility for this accident, followed by corrective action would be able to restore some confidence amongst the visiting foreigners,” said a railway official, requesting anonymity. A narrow-gauge, single-track railway connecting Kalka (at an elevation of 656 m) with Shimla (at 2,075 m), the Kalka-Shimla Railway has been called the greatest narrow-gauge engineering feat in India by Guinness Book of Rail Facts and Feats. Several seven-coach passenger trains and single-coach rail motor cars operate at speeds of around 25 km per hour on this route daily.
