The Pride of Bengal "Darjeeling Mail" gets notched up furiously by a Piglet
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10 minutes late running 12344 New Jalpaiguri (NJP)/ Haldibari (HDB)- Sealdah (SDAH) DARJEELING Superfast Mail, aka, the Pride of Bengal, headed by SHF Piglet 40029 WDP- 4B of SGUJ shed honks, furiously notches up at Dum Dum Junction outer, and chases 31296 TKD shed WAG- 9 going light. This...
more... is one of the very few non-elite trains in India to have 9 A.C. coaches (including 7 A.C. 3-Tier coaches), and is certainly one of the best Express train in India. This train gets the most preference in Sahibganj Loop section, and maintains an average speed of 57 km/hr even after travelling most of its journey through a stretch where MPS is between 70- 90 km/hr. Most high ranked officials prefer to travel on this train to travel between North and South Bengal instead of private cars or flights. Note the rake had an ICF Duronto coach. The train is connected with the New Jalpaiguri- Darjeeling Toy Train, and the Toy train leaves NJP after the Mail arrives. It is for this reason that the train derived this name.
The train has been running since pre-independence days. During the British period all connections to North Bengal were through East Bengal. From 1878, the railway route from Kolkata, then called Calcutta, to Siliguri was in two laps. The first lap was a 185 km journey along the Eastern Bengal State Railway from Calcutta Station (later renamed Sealdah) to Damookdeah Ghat on the southern bank of the Padma River, then across the river in a ferry and the second lap of the journey was a 336 km metre gauge line of the North Bengal Railway that linked Saraghat on the northern bank of the Padma to Siliguri.
The 1.8 km long Hardinge Bridge across the Padma came up in 1912. In 1926 the metre-gauge section north of the bridge was converted to broad gauge, and so the entire Calcutta - Siliguri route became broad-gauge. The route thus ran: Sealdah-Ranaghat-Bheramara-Hardinge Bridge-Iswardi-Santahar-Hili-Parabtipur- Nilphamari-Haldibari-Jalpaiguri-Siliguri.
The Darjeeling Mail ran on this route in pre-partition days. Even after the partition of India it ran on this route for some years. It used to connect to Assam Mail, which in pre-partition days ran from Santahar to Guwahati.
With the partition of India in 1947, the major hurdle in connecting Kolkata and Siliguri was that there was no bridge across the Ganges in West Bengal or Bihar. A generally acceptable route to Siliguri was via Sahibganj Loop to Sakrigali ghat. Across the Ganges by ferry to Manihari Ghat. Then metre gauge via Katihar and Barsoi to Kishanganj and finally narrow gauge to Sliguri. In 1949 Kishanganj-Siliguri section was converted to metre gauge.
In the early 1960s, when Farakka Barrage was being constructed, a more radical change was made. Indian Railways created a new broad-gauge rail link from Kolkata, and on a greenfield site south of Siliguri Town built an entirely new through broad-gauge station, New Jalpaiguri.
The 2,240 metres (7,350 ft) long Farakka Barrage carries a rail-cum-road bridge across the Ganges. The rail bridge was thrown open to the public in 1971, thereby linking the Barharwa-Azimganj-Katwa Loop Line to Malda, New Jalpaiguri and other railway stations in North Bengal. Since then Darjeeling Mail has been using this route.
