The Kangra Valley Railway
Route: Palampur - Pathankot - Jawalamukhi - Kangra - Joginder Nagar
Kangra Valley Railway Tour
The exotic Kangra Valley lying between the Dhaula Dhar and the Shivalik foothills in the state of Himachal Pradesh is the conglomeration of valleys and plateaus of the Himalayas. Renowned for its natural beauty, the valley attracts thousands of tourists every year.
To the north, the peaks rear skyward: first a low chain of ridges followed by an extensive line averaging between 7,000 and 9,000 feet. Directly behind those are massifs rising from 13,000 to well over 16,000 feet. Then the snows.
The Kangra valley railway is ample proof of how railway engineers can create a work in harmony with nature. This they have done without destroying the grandeur of the mountain, and at the same time, revealing to the traveller, an enchanted fairyland. Like the Russian émigré Roerich’s paintings, the line is where a poet or an artist would have placed it. This symphony emphasises the tremendous depth of the gorges through which sparkling streams tear their impetuous way to the Great Plains of India. Anything else would have ruined it. A different alignment, a different mode of taking the railway through the maze of hills and valleys would have spoilt its picture postcard perfectness. This unique line has just two tunnels, one of which is only 250 feet and the other 1,000 feet in length.
The most picturesque parts of the valley are exposed to the view – the stretch of 18 miles from Mangwal to Kangra, for example, lies through country unsurpassed for its majestic grandeur with the majestic Ban Ganga gorge and the deep Kangra chasm as two piece de resistance. As one approaches Palampur, the everpresent background of snowy chain peaks, 15,000 and 16,000 feet in heigh
t is barely ten miles away. From here onwards, the line runs parallel to the Dhauladhar range and much nearer to it than any other railways in India that ever comes so close to the eternal snows.
Rail Tracks
Through all this portion of the journey, the scenery is very rugged, but extremely interesting especially along the last few miles to Kangra whose ancient Rajput Fort – now in ruins after the 1905 earthquake – is visible from beyond the second tunnel. The line does not pass through Kangra town itself but is separated from it by a gigantic cleft in the hills at the bottom of which runs the picturesque Ban Ganga River.
The Kangra Valley Railway, Hill Trains in India
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