The Himalayan tea train that's running out of steam | Hacker News Reader

The Himalayan tea train that's running out of steam

bbc.com

46 pointskposehn17 comments

Railroads of this era (of any gauge), worked because at the time labor was so cheap, every 50-100 miles you could have people unload the cars and put them in another freight car, even a different gauge.

Then people around the 1860's had the great idea that you could leave the items inside the freight car, and just hook it onto the other train if the gauge, couplers, and brakes all followed the same rules.

Steam Locomotives have an odd attraction in that they were near the start of the industrial revolution, and have a visceral external motion that can be followed.

How many keep operating on tourist lines as the number of people remember them remains to be seen.

Even in the United States, while ridership remains high of tourist lines, fewer and fewer people have the skills to maintain a steam engine. Engines were once ordered out of a catalog, and parts were only a telegraph order away, but today it takes peculiar machinist skill to forge what were once mass produced castings.

Narrow gauge wasn't just gratuitous incompatibility, it was for areas where there wasn't room for the normal gauge, like mines and mountains.

Steam trains have a visceral appeal which has worked well as a tourist attraction for years. The number of people who remember them in operation has to be small; the last UK scheduled steam service was 47 years ago. So they've found a new audience.

I'm optimistic about the maintenance given the emergence of "maker" culture. While it's a very different prospect to desktop CNC and does require more skill, it's not a magic lost art. There has even been a crowdfunded new locomotive built, "Tornado": http://www.a1steam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=art...

Edit: this has led me to finding that a large fraction of the UK's preserved steam locomotives were kept more or less by accident, as they were less profitable to scrap than wagons and were therefore put at the back of the yard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers

> How many keep operating on tourist lines as the number of people remember them remains to be seen. Even in the United States, while ridership remains high of tourist lines, fewer and fewer people have the skills to maintain a steam engine

Puffing Billy [1] in Victoria, Australia, gets parts custom machined from a number of machine shops around the country, and even gets time 'donated' from Navy personnel who are trained and licensed to operate and maintain steam engines to supplement the full-time and volunteer staff it has. The entire line is now purely a tourist attraction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffing_Billy_Railway

::shakes Magic 8-ball:: Outlook not so good.

A nearly identical situation has been unfolding over the past 10 years for a certain Taiwanese tea train.[1]

Constructed in 1906, the Alishan Forest Railway has so many similarities it looks like a joke. Narrow ~2 ft gauge, ~87km in length, 2,000+ meters in vertical elevation gain serving high mountain tea farms, 6%+ grades, ~5 Z switchbacks, Class B Steam for special occasions, Diesels for regular days, in the running for World Heritage sites, and in terrible financial straights after a long fight to make it go private[2].

The line was government run for most of it's life, privatized in 2008, and returned to government control in 2011. It makes $2 million USD in revenue each year but costs $6.5 million to run and needs another $30 million in repairs to keep it going[3] (due to a landslide as well). That said, if you get a chance, go on a Wednesday. Shay's are fantastic and we're down to 5 of these kinds of lines throughout the world.

I am really routing for Mr. Banerjee here but the odds seem stacked against him. Ultimately it was the installation of a two-lane highway with a plethora of shuttle services that made the Taiwan high mountain rail obsolete. If he can command a monopoly on the road as well, of course he will come out ahead. But from the sound of the taxi business in Ghum it looks like that battle is already lost.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alishan_Forest_Railway

[2] http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/05/01/2...

[3] http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/05/01/2...

IIRC the Taiwanese one is a Japanese railway. There's another one they installed during the invasion down to the North Korean border from Tonghua in Jilin province, China. (Then Japanese-occupied Manchuria) I believe that one is still operational - I took a ride on it about 2005/2006. The only other narrow gauge line in China is the late 19th century / very early 20th century French line from Haiphong in Vietnam to Kunming in Yunnan province, China. However, the Chinese government is just putting the finishing touches on a mega-direct (spare no mountain from tunnels, bridge every gorge) modern replacement... so this line is also about to close, circa right now.

Gauge is less than 1 meter.

Thank you, edited to say "ft" not meters. Alishan is 2 feet, 6 inches. Darjeeling is 2 feet.

Both will rock you side to side like an armored car at a G7 protest.

The article fails to mention that the DHR is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - only one of two railways so honored.

The DHR has actually tried to replace the Class Bs a few times since they were introduced. The original Class As were too flimsy for the job - and the Garret they ordered after the Class Bs was far too much of a locomotive for them - so the Class Bs remain, 100 years after being introduced.

I wonder what if anything I build tech wise will survive 10 years - let alone 10 times that.

I have spent a lot of time in Darjeeling on tea and the said train. Indian Railways is completely different beast. People might have hear a lot of e-commerce boom in India but Indian Railways online ticket booking system remains THE largest e-commerce system in India. Also their website is probably the shittiest e-commerce platform every built with less than 1% of transactions actually become successful.

Check out what ails indian railways in this 10 part series by one of the latest consultant hired to turn around IR.[1]

[1] http://swarajyamag.com/columns/railways-choice-and-competiti...

Also their website is probably the shittiest e-commerce platform every built with less than 1% of transactions actually become successful.

Is there a source for that percentage? I've found http://www.medianama.com/2011/09/223-irctc-reports-13-2m-tra... that estimates 75% success on the banking side, but presumably that doesn't count failures in UX, validation, etc. I'd be really interested in reading more.

This is an interesting article but why why why do people insist on hijacking a browser's scrolling functionality!?

@OP Why is this post on HN? Please stop posting just to promote your agenda. This is not Reddit. Unfortunately I feel visiting HN is now lot of waste of time. I wish somebody from YC or HN does something about this soon.

I don't see any agenda here. It looks like an offbeat and interesting post of the kind that has always been on topic for HN [1]. We're grateful when people dig up these things!

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

And what exactly is OP's agenda?

No agenda. Why would I have one?

Well, other than sharing interesting stories, right?

Wait! That's the one. I had forgotten.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com