There can be no questioning the credentials of the Chairman of the Railway Board as a conservator of the unique heritage of the Indian Railways. Alas, his passion has not trickled down enough, and UNESCO experts have warned that the iconic Darjeeling Himalayan Railway ~ the “toy train” as it is popularly known ~ was once again risking its status as a World Heritage Site.

Shockingly enough, that too because the local managers of the railway went on a “clean up” drive a few months back to get things shipshape when Mr Ashwani Lohani was to visit the place. A printing press at Kurseong was junked, as were items of furniture and other artifacts, new modern toilets were built at a couple of stations.

Advertisement

Well-intentioned may have been the “improvements”, but rightly did the UNESCO experts “flag” the matter, which prompted the Railway Board to take to task the Northeast Frontier Railway under whose management the Toy Train operates. This is not the first such transgression, the replacement of the quaint steam locomotives with diesel traction had raised anxious eyebrows.

So too did a proposal for an air-conditioned coach “for passenger comfort” ~ some official not appreciating the singular joy experienced when the train “ran through” a low-hanging cloud caressing the tracks. Mercifully no reports of similar “atrocities” have been publicised in respect of the two other UNESCO-recognised hill railways ~ the Kalka-Shimla railway and the Nilgiri Mountain Railway ~ but there is little reason to assume that their officials are as heritage-conscious as necessary.

It is to be hoped that Mr Lohani would use his good offices to enlighten railwaymen of their rich legacies ~ the rack-and pinion system that prevents carriages “rolling down” the gradients on the Nilgiri line, the ‘Zs’ and loops on the way to Darjeeling, the tunnels on the Shimla line. Though the Neral-Matheran hill section on the Western Ghats is not UNESCO-lauded, it too merits “protection” ~ its zig-zags are world famous.

The Railway Board recently directed the preservation of a couple of narrow-gauge lines in Gujarat ~ a pity that so many others (many were initially set up by the princely states) have been discarded. Railway lore is now a universal passion and since India does have a treasure-chest in hand, maybe Rail Bhawan could set about creating an equivalent of a zonal railway to assume the management and operational onus of heritage lines.

That would not only bring them under special focus with a tourist potential, but preserve them against the attacks just experienced at Kurseong, Ghum and Darjeeling. “Diversity” is a term not favoured in the present political equation but surely Mr Narendra Modi, Piyush Goyal and Ashwani Lohani can muster what is required for India to boast simultaneous operations of its “vintage” railways and an ultra-modern “bullet train”?