Scenic route
Darjeeling Toy Train
New Jalpaiguri → Darjeeling · India
Darjeeling Toy Train in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 88 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 7 h
- Average speed
- 13 km/h
- Top speed
- 25 km/h
- Operator
- Indian Railways
- Train
- B-Class steam · diesel
- Countries
- India
- In service since
- 1881
- Runs
- 1× daily each way, plus Darjeeling–Ghum steam joyrides
- Highest point
- 2,258 m
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
A two-foot-gauge UNESCO marvel looping up to 2,200 m: steam engines older than the tea gardens they pass.
From the plains the little train climbs into cloud forest on a roadbed that swaps sides with the Hill Cart Road like an old dance partner, gaining height through reverses and horseshoe curves. The crest comes at Ghum, at 2,258 m India’s highest station, before a final swoop round the Batasia Loop where Kanchenjunga fills the northern sky on clear mornings. Glasgow-built B-Class saddle tanks, some over a century old, still work the showpiece services with crews three generations deep.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 2663438 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits 0.5 km from the shape of 52541
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Sukna — plains give way to forest
- Tindharia works and Agony Point loop
- Kurseong bazaar running
- Ghum — India’s highest station at 2,258 m
- Batasia Loop with Kanchenjunga views
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More train routes in India.