For Josephine Creswell from Australia, boarding the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) toy train at the New Jalpaiguri (NJP) station on Sunday was a ticket to her family's past.

As the train chugged out of NJP after a gap of over four months — the regular passenger service between NJP and Darjeeling had closed since July due to damages on certain stretches of the railway tracks — Josephine, who is from Canberra, remembered her grandfather.

George Belben Cresswell had served as a general manager and an engineer at the same heritage mountain railway over a century ago, the proud granddaughter smiled.

“My grandfather, George Belben Cresswell, was the general manager of the DHR and an engineer in the DHR from 1906 to 1916. I am excited because I took that journey on the century-old mountain railway that still runs along the hill tracks,” 64-year-old Josephine said, beaming broadly.

In India, DHR is the oldest mountain railway that commenced its journey in 1881.

Josephine said she had planned to visit Darjeeling and take the toy train from NJP to Darjeeling — a 78-kilometre-long route — to witness the mountain railway and the idyllic hilly landscape where her grandfather had spent a decade around 108 years back.

“But I learned that the toy train service is not available (owing to the repairs). Today (Sunday), when it resumed, I took the first train,” she said.

Since July 5, the DHR authorities suspended the toy train service as some stretches of the tracks, which run parallel to NH110 (formerly NH55), got damaged because of landslides and cave-ins caused by the lashings of monsoon.

“Considering the safety of passengers, we had stopped the train service. Extensive repair works were carried out and finally, we resumed the service today,” said Surendra Kumar, the divisional railway manager of the Katihar division of Northeast Frontier Railway.

On Sunday, a diesel loco, hauling an airconditioned chair car and a first-class chair car with a total capacity of 35 passengers, headed for the hills.

Before the train service was reopened for passengers, the railway authorities also conducted trial runs to confirm that the movement of the toy train was safe along those stretches of the tracks where repairs were done.

Josephine, aware that Unesco had declared the DHR a world heritage site in 1999, said the Indian government should now focus on its conservation.

“It is a heritage site known across the world. We hope the Indian government invests more funds to conserve this heritage, the century-old rolling stock, to make it more attractive and popular,” she said.

In her journey to the hills, she was accompanied by two other Australians, Randal Mathews and Penny — a couple from Victoria.

“Our plans for this trip were drawn up much before and finally this happened. We are quite excited about the journey,” said Randal, a retired teacher.

Some others like Rahul Bhat and his wife Divya from Madhya Pradesh had also boarded the NJP to take the toy train ride for the first time.

“We were waiting for this day to go to Darjeeling by toy train,” Bhat, currently posted at Binnaguri in Jalpaiguri, said.

Kumar, the DRM, was present on Sunday with DHR director Priyanshu and other railway officials, said there was always a steady demand for tickets for this service.

“We have drawn up proposals to cater to more passengers and have forwarded them to the higher authorities for approval,” Kumar said.