India By Toy Train

English is India’s second language but they don’t always grasp its nuances (or maybe they do and just shrug). For instance, they call their miniature mountain railway the “Toy Train”. Imagine booking a flight on the Toy Plane or a stateroom on the Toy Boat.

But when my good friend, R.C. Hobson heard that I was headed up the Himalayan foothills to Darjeeling, he insisted that the Toy Train was just what I wanted. Good enough for me. Mr. Hobson is a train connoisseur. One entire room of his home is an operational miniature train town.

In the 1970’s some friends and I ascended the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland by way of a cool mini-train. As I recall, it cost $50 for the 11-kilometer ride. (I just checked and it’s almost $250 now.) By contrast, the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway – or Toy Train – switchbacks its way uphill for 52 miles for less than 700 rupees – about nine dollars round trip. 

So how big is the Toy Train?

Says Mr. Hobson, “Hold two fingers 24 inches apart.  That is exactly the width between the rails.” 

“This is absolutely the smallest a steam engine can be; just four wheels. They have huge headlights on both ends.  So it doesn’t matter which way the engine is pointed.  It can drive a train in either direction.”

That’s good, he says, since the grades are twice as steep as American railroads. The Toy Train has to switch directions a half dozen times to make the climb to Ghoom – at an altitude of 1½ miles, it’s the highest railway station in India. And this “toy” has been pulling loads of 50 tons up that same 50 miles for 150 years. (It thinks it can. It thinks it can.) You pass through towns along the way, following narrow main streets so close to some of the buildings that anyone sticking his head out of a shop is likely to get it knocked off. (See video – if you can.)

Mr. Hobson tells me that Mother Teresa was on her way to Darjeeling on this very train when God called her to start her ministry in the slums of Kolkata to ‘the poorest of the poor’. (The Toy Train ride takes five to ten hours, “depending on derailments” so Mother T had ample time for reflection.)

My first ride to Darjeeling was one of those derailments. I struck up an acquaintance with a very attractive young couple on holiday. After slowly climbing for three scenic toy train hours, a rock slide knocked out the track. We were faced with the option of sadly wending our way back to the station where our nine dollars would be churlishly refunded or just getting off. The three of us got off and had no problem hitchhiking the rest of the way. It’s one of the fringe benefits of being very attractive.