The glorious railways of India part 2

This followed on from John’s previous presentation which had covered four of the nine administrations into which the railway of India is divided, these having been the Western, Central, Northern, and North Eastern Railways.

We started on the Eastern Railway at Patna travelling to Calcutta behind a broad gauge WP pacific, 755 of which were built between 1947 and 1967. In Calcutta itself we glimpsed the trams and visited the port railway with its’ 45 0-6-2T’s built by Hunslet and Mitsubishi and then Sealdah station with its’ fine 0-6-0 pilot locos. Going north we visited the Ranaghat and the Shantipur ng. line and saw various rare types including the Beyer Peacock XF 0-8-0 class.

The wonderful Darjeeling 2ft gauge line on the North East Frontier Railway was next - a fascinating 55 miles, climbing 7,100 ft with 4 loops, 5 “Z” reversals and numerous 0-4-0 tanks built from 1889 onwards, all recorded in many very scenic photos.

Moving to the South Eastern Railway further ng. lines were visited and at Kurda Rd many of the huge WG class of 2-8-2 were seen including ones being coaled in the traditional Indian manner of workers climbing a steeply inclined plank with baskets of coal on their heads - no health and safety around there!

On the South-Central Railway, we first visited Vasco de Gama in Goa where in the rather more European setting metre gauge YD 2-8-2’s worded the long branch up to Londa Junction. At Hubli we saw YB Pacific’s together with YP’s - the most numerous pacific class in the world with 871 built. Many more brightly liveried YP and the similar YG 2-8-2’s were seen at Secunderabad in the large depot and at work on frequent suburban services. The broad gauge here produced several rare 1930’s XB pacifics at work.

A shot of a fine WP on the Nilagari Express brought us to Madras and the Southern Railway. Here, HPS 4-6-0’s worked the suburban services with WT 2-8-4T’s and another XB were seen on shed before the final scenes on the metre gauge at Bangalore including a 1972 built YG.

Most of the pre- partition locos seen were UK built but subsequently most were built elsewhere with the USA and Canada prominent before India itself built most of the standard classes. Once again this show was an amazing selection of photos from a huge and varied country.