Delhiwale: To a mountain locomotive

The Kalka-Shimla steam engine, a relic from 1935, now stands preserved at New Delhi station, evoking nostalgia for its scenic journeys through the Himalayas.

The undulating hills, the winding tracks, and the steam engine laboriously lurching along the narrow gauge. While the carefree coaches behind merrily rumbling by the changing scenery—now passing by a village, now by a misty meadow overlooking a snowy peak. Throughout the journey, the hard-working engine continues to huff n’ puff, the coupling rods clanking over the wheels, the smoke-stack belching out murky clouds into the cold mountain air. This black smoke wafts over the pristine slopes long after the mail is already on the next hill.

The ZF Class engine used to haul the trains on the Kala-Shimla route and was manufactured in Nazi Germany in 1935. (HT Photo)

The mountainous Kalka-Shimla railway continues to operate, though the age of steam engine has vanished. But one steam engine that would routinely traverse through the scenic Himalayan landscape lies preserved outside the main building of New Delhi railway station, Paharganj-side.

This evening, six men are sitting by the black beauty. An adjoining slab describes the exhibit as ZF Class, which in layman’s lingo refers to a narrow-gauge steam locomotive. This particular specimen used to haul the trains on the aforementioned Kala-Shimla route. It was also made to work among the hills of Kanga Valley Railway, according to the slab. The locomotive precedes Independence, and was manufactured in Kassel, Germany in 1935. (This makes the engine a relic of Nazi Germany, for Hitler had become the German Fuhrer a year before).

Inside the locomotive, the driver’s compartment is tiny, the boiler’s backhead crisscrossed with brakes, pipes, gauges. Sadly, the engine’s black cylindrical body is obliged to share its kismet with the walls of very many Delhi monuments—it is scratched with ‘I luv u’s and crudely drawn hearts.

Some steps further away, along the station building, stands one more steam engine. It is only a replica, accompanied by a long metal slab, which bears a faded inscription informing that the New Delhi railway station was inaugurated by President Dr Rajendra Prasad in 1956. That said, if any steam engine enthusiast is longing for our stationary Kalka-Shimla locomotive to resume its chhuk-chhuking on the old picturesque route, then one may as well repeat what the Indian railway’s automated announcer never gets tired of repeating—“the inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.”