Scenic rail trips -- Kangra Valley Railroad and others

Since the Vasco de Gama to Hubli line was upgraded to broadgauge, trains no longer regularly stop at Dudhsagar Falls, requiring an expensive jeep charter from Kulem for those interested in seeing Goa's most impressive waterfall. The tourism department has just announced a new, weekly, excursion run to the falls beginning Saturday, January 31. A car will be added to the regular Vasco-Vijaywada express (nr.7227) departing 6:50/7:20 (Vasco/Madgaon) arriving at the falls around 9:30am; the return trip is at 2:45 pm. I don't have any further details as to price or what is included, as I just saw a small item in the newspaper. I haven't been to the falls yet myself so don't know what is available there as far as food, hiking trails and things to do for half a day, but is should be a scenic trip and area.


And nice to see our list of scenic rail trips growing -- some sure look to be interesting.


(edit: price Rp400 and includes breakfast and lunch)

(edit: this excursion is no longer running)

An interesting link which takes us back to the original subject of this thread:

http://www.123himachal.com/kangra/train.htm

Hi Harry

I bought that book for my daughter's 20th birthday!

where is kalka i cant find it anywhere

i would love to make the train ride kalka-shimla

Kalka is north of Delhi, next to Chandigarh.

There are fast daytime trains and slower overnight trains connecting Delhi & Kalka.

namaste,

can you tell me where i can find Koraput and Kirandul

Look for Vishakhapatnam on the east coast about half way between Chennai and Calcutta.

Then look for Highway 43, this passes through Koraput.

Koraput is about halfway along the line between Vishakhapatnam and Kirandul.

Kirandul is about 160 kms west of Koraput.

Research the whole area well, there seems to be many great places to go, and some great places where your not allowed to go. (tribal area's)

This is unfortunately one of the poorest areas of India.

THANKS

places where you not allowed to come?

please tell us more

Sorry, I dont know any more.

They are tribal area's and you need a special permit to visit, this has to be done on a tour and is quite expensive.

ok i'll just paste some links.... see for yourself if you think this journey will be worth your while....
http://darjeelingnews.net/darjeeling...n_railway.html
http://darjeelingnews.net/ (see other links under DHR in the middle part of the web page)
http://www.dhrs.org/

i have been to other scenic train journeys in india, but most have been recommended i see. the bangalore to hydrabad journey is not too bad. most journeys from nagpur should be through the chambal valley. try nagpur to delhi or to some other point in midway. trivandum to coimbatore goes through lush green scenery.

Hi ..
Is there anything like an "All India" rail pass? something like a Euro rail ?
Thanks

There is the Indrail pass, see the thread below.

Is an Indrail pass worth the money?

Hey Steven, this is a great thread...just adding my two bits...

I was brought up in a place called Ankleshwar (on the banks of the river Narmada), Bharuch district (about 320 kms from Mumbai and 80 from Baroda)...there used to be a narrow gauge train from Ankleshwar to Rajpipla...it was fun indeed to travel by that train. Its now defunct....have you heard abou tthat one ?

Also, we used to take the Navjeevan Express (earlier Ahmedabad-Madras) but now Rajkot - Madras..and it used to be a 34 hr train journey through the most dull, dry and hot routes ever...surat, nandurbar, amalner, jalgaon, bhusaval, akola, ballarshah.....used to reach kazipet in the morning where the enigne would change (in the sense the train would then start moving in the opposite direction towards vijaywada, madras) and when i was a kid, my parents would tease me saying "we are going back home" and i would buy it not realising we were going in another direction. Now ofcourse, there is no engine change...just before kazipet, they have a station called Warangal i think and the train just proceeds from there.....i used to hate it when at Vijaywada, they would remove the diesel engine and attach an electric one...i loved the look of the diesel engines..even today.....usually has the name of the station it belongs to for example Ratlam, Watwa etc......but i hated the small diesel engine...have you seen those ? its wheels used to be like the coal engines....i love the big diesel engines....unfortunately, in some years even these will be phased out.....
Just ereminds me, my grandfather used to work for Southern Railways !!!

Cheers
Vij

There used to be lots of little railways in that part of Gujarat, I think most are closed now, I guess they just couldn't make money.

I've got a couple of old video's that have clips of trains in that area, 'Relics Of The Raj' is one of them, it includes Baroda - Dabhoi and Bilimora - Waghai sections. (both now closed)

My best (before India) experiences on trains were on the old 125's in England, these trains will always be special to me, they always bring back great memories.

A wonderful post, Sonomama ! Makes me want to get there right now !!