Indian Railway Heritage Trains
A heritage railway refers to a preserved or tourist railroad that functions as a tourist attraction. While typically operated by volunteers, it may also involve professional staff. These railways often aim to recreate historical railway scenes. Below is a compilation of Heritage trains operated by the Indian Railway along with their details.
Heritage Trains by Indian Railway
The Indian Railways boasts ownership of four UNESCO-acclaimed World Heritage Sites, namely :-
- The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (1999)
- The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (2005)
- The Kalka Shimla Railway (2008)
- The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites (2004)
Other Heritage Sites in Indian Railway are :
- Matheran Hill Railway
- Palace on Wheels
- Deccan Odyssey
Heritage Trains by Indian Railway Details
- The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
- The Nilgiri Mountain Railway
- The Kalka Shimla Railway
- Matheran Hill Railway
- Palace on Wheels
- Deccan Odyssey
Fare Structure of Heritage Special Trains An Example
Fare Structure of Heritage Special Trains Ahmedabad – Ektanagar – Ahmedabad Sector.
Fare
- The basic fare of Executive AC Chair Car (EC Class) of Heritage Special train shall be same as that of the basic fare of the existing Executive AC Chair Car (EC class) of Shatabdi Express trains.
- Other Charges like reservation fee, Surcharge for Superfast trains, Goods and service tax etc, as applicable for EC Class shall be levied separately.
Other Conditions
- Normal Child fare rules as applicable for EC class will apply. No concessional tickets and tickets against free complimentary passes which are not fully reimbursed shall be admissible in this train.
- Booking of ticket against Passes issued to Member of Parliaments and Rail travel coupons (RTCs) issued to MLA/MLCs, Warrants etc for which fare are fully reimbursed shall be permissible in this train.
- The eligibility of Privilege pass/ PTO /DUTY pass etc. for Railway employees shall be on par with eligibility in the Executive class of Shatabdi trains.
Refund Details
- Normal Cancellation and refund procedure as applicable for Executive class shall apply.
A Brief Overview
Indian Railways maintain 34 Museums, Heritage Parks and Heritage galleries, spread all over India, for creating unique and rich experience to visitors about Railway heritage in India. The National Rail Museum in New Delhi and Regional Rail Museums at Chennai, Mysore, Howrah and Nagpur, are iconic tourist destinations in their region.
Indian Railways have also preserved about 230 Steam Locomotives, 110 vintage coaches and wagons at prominent places including museums, heritage park etc., for public display. Many of these rolling stocks are more than 100 years old and they bring back memories of old glory to the mind of the visitors.
Indian Railways are also preserving about 16 Steam locomotives as working heritage. Although, not in regular service, these preserved steam locomotives are still capable of hauling tourist trains and ceremonial running.
The Rewari Steam Shed has been rechristened as Rewari Heritage Steam Centre in 2002 for recreating the memories of working Steam Shed, a feat un-parallel in the World. Rewari Steam Centre now maintains six Broad Gauge and four Meter Gauge working steam locomotives, that include the iconic “Fairy Queen” (1855), placed in the Guinness Book of Record as being the oldest working locomotive in the World and “Akbar”, that featured in many Bollywood movies like Sultan, Gadar etc. Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) and Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) also operate regular steam services thus attracting steam lovers from India and abroad.
Indian Railways have a large repository of built heritage like buildings, bridges, via ducts etc. As of now, about 25 bridges and 70 buildings are designated as Heritage Assets by Indian Railways. Notable among them are Jubilee Bridge near Kolkata, Yamuna bridge near Naini, Sonenagar Bridge, Pamban via duct, Bandra suburban station, Pratap Vilas Palace, Vadodara, Glenogle Bunglow, Mumbai, SER (erstwhile BNR) Headquarter, Kolkata etc. Indian Railways have been making special efforts to conserve these built heritages
A slew of measures have been initiated recently to institutionalize rail heritage preservation. These include strengthening rail museums, promoting rail heritage tourism, more steam trains, compilation of heritage inventory and publishing it on the website, collaboration with M/s Google for digitizing and providing online access to rail heritage inventory and visual tour of museums, MOU with INTACH and Ahmedabad University for capacity building of railway officers and introducing modules for training courses etc.
Maintenance of five Hill railways of India (Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR), Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR), Kalka Shimla Railway (KSR), Matheran Light Railway(MLR) and Kangra Valley Railway (KVR)) are undertaken as per extant codal provision of Indian Railways and UNESCO Guidelines. In addition, special delegation of powers has been accorded to concerned Divisional Railway Managers for promoting tourism in these five Hill Railways.