Mountain route
Nilgiri Mountain Railway
Mettupalayam → Ooty · India
India’s only rack railway: X-class steam pushes the blue coaches up 1-in-12 grades from palm plains to Ooty’s tea hills; UNESCO-listed in 2005.
At Kallar the Abt rack begins and the engine drops to the rear for the long shove up through jungle, past waterfalls and halts patrolled by macaques. Above Coonoor the mood softens as diesel replaces steam for the run across eucalyptus downs to Udagamandalam, 2,203 m up in the Blue Mountains. Covering its 46 km in nearly five hours, this is one of Asia’s slowest railways, and among its most stubbornly loved.
Along the way
- Kallar — the rack begins
- Adderley and Hillgrove forest halts
- Coonoor engine change
- Wellington and Ketti valley
- Ooty at 2,203 m
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1332011 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 3 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: the railway’s own site — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
- See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it
Questions and answers
How long is the Nilgiri Mountain Railway?
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway runs 46 km from Mettupalayam to Ooty.
How long does the Nilgiri Mountain Railway take?
The fastest scheduled journey is 4 h 50 min for the 46 km. That is an average of 10 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 30 km/h.
Who runs the Nilgiri Mountain Railway?
Indian Railways (Southern Railway), with X-class steam rack loco.
How old is the Nilgiri Mountain Railway?
The line has been in service since 1899. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
How high does the Nilgiri Mountain Railway climb?
2,203 m above sea level at its highest point.
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