Tourists and toy train enthusiasts visiting the Darjeeling hills will have the opportunity to witness three steam locos of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) which have completed their century-old journey by chugging through the sharp bends along the hilly railway track.

The locos, which are “living” examples of heritage and engineering marvels, will be displayed at the third Ghum Festival inaugurated on Sunday.

Surendra Kumar, the divisional railway manager of Northeast Frontier Railway’s Katihar division, inaugurated the fest at Ghum.

The fest is being organised by the railways to promote the mountain railway that was declared a world heritage site by Unesco 25 years back.

Kumar, while interacting with newspersons after the event that will continue till December 8, said the main objective of the annual event is to highlight the century-old mountain railway so that more and more people get drawn to the toy train and take rides.

“Thousands of tourists visit Darjeeling. For them, the DHR is an added attraction. We want them to learn more about the glory of the toy train through this festival,”
said Kumar.

This year, the railways have dedicated the fest to celebrate the silver jubilee year of the conferment of world heritage status to the DHR. The status was granted on December 5, 1999.

“There are plans to conduct a special joy ride with children on December 5 to mark the significance. Apart from that, three 100-year-old steam locos will be exhibited at the festival to celebrate the 25th year of the world heritage status,” said a railway official.

During the week-long event, locals, along with tourists, will also congregate in Ghum and Darjeeling to attend different events.

“Train enthusiasts can visit the DHR museum at the Ghum station. There will be an exhibition of local handicrafts, photographs and stalls serving local cuisines at the fest to promote the traditional cultural heritage of Darjeeling hills,” the official sources said.

As of now, the DHR runs a pair of trains between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling every day, along with 12 joy rides between Darjeeling and Ghum railway stations that are 14 kilometres apart.

“We are expecting a huge turnout of tourists during the winter season,” said an official of DHR.