Kandaghat , My visit to the Himalyas !

Yesterday I went to Kandaghat, a place 30 km before Chail. i went with my parents and my elder brother. the eldest brother was in Delhi and was ( and still is ) very busy. On the first day, Friday, we went till Dharampur and decided to go till Kandaghat till train.

I am going to describe my first ever train journey in the hills

I will start with some facts.On1903 the first ever Himalayan train ever run slowly on the tracks.

The whole network consists of 102 tunnels, formerly 103 but one tunnel was levelled The longest tunnel is near Barog and is 1.41 km long. When this tunnel was being constructed the digging was started from both sides. One side had started digging 50 about 50 meters from where it should have been. When the other side came out from the other side. They did not find the other group.The instructor of the wrong side committed suicide. The wrong hole is still there. It has 988 curves many of which are as sharp as 45 degrees It has around 500 bridges. The man who marked all the routes was a native named Balkhu. Without him the construction was not possible.

We reached the station and and waited for some time as the train was a bit late. When we got inside we found ourselves in jam packed train my brother had to hang outside the train because there was a man blocking the door. The train had to stop to pull him back in. We had to stand as there was no place to sit. After some time I moved nearer to the door and stood at the edge of the door. the wind was hitting my face and the view of the trees and green and grey mountains was fascinating. Grey because there was a forest fire on one of the mountains. It looked terrible.

After some time when there was less rush but still no place to sit then me and my brother sat at the edge of the door with our legs hanging out. It was real fun then. We touched the tunnels because they were so near. When we reached the end I was Sorry to go as I had much fun.