NFR team visits slide site

NFR officials at Paglajhora on Saturday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

TT, Siliguri, June 21: A team of officials from the Northeast Frontier Railway led by the additional general manager visited Paglajhora yesterday, where frequent landslides have damaged toy train tracks.

Sources said Daya Nand Jha, the additional general manager, NFR, visited the stretch on NH55, 35km from here, to assess the extent of damage that boulders had caused.

"Heavy rainfall has been causing boulders and soil to fall on the toy train tracks at Paglajhora continuously from the time services resumed along the whole length of the 80km-tracks. Boulders have been falling everyday. The additional general manager had come to assess the extent of damage," an official of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway said.

Toy train services - one from New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling and the other between Darjeeling and New Jalpaiguri - had resumed on June 12 after a gap of five years.

The rides were stopped four days later after several landslides on the stretch.

Five years ago, the route was shut after heavy rainfall swept away a 500m stretch on NH55, along which the toy train tracks run, on June 14, 2010.

In September 2011, another landslide at Tindharia, 30km from here, had damaged the tracks.

Today, sources said Jha told DHR officials that trains should not ply on the damaged stretch till repairs are complete.

"Since there has been continuous rainfall in the hills, we can start the repairs only after the monsoon. Starting the work now will be of no use because boulders will be falling on the tracks frequently. The AGM has said that no train will ply on the stretch till the tracks are repaired. We will probably resume the service on the whole stretch when the track is repaired after the monsoon," said a DHR official.