Kangra Valley Railway
 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Kangra |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) |
| Length | 164 km |
|} The Kangra Valley Railway lies in the sub-Himalayan region of Kangra Valley and covers a distance of 164 km (101.9 mi) from Pathankot, Punjab to Jogindernagar in Himachal Pradesh, India. The Kangra valley railway comes under the Firozpur division of Northern Railway.
The highest point on this line is at Ahju station at an elevation of 1,290 meters (4,230 ft).
History
The railway line was planned in May 1926 and commissioned in 1929. The line has two tunnels, one of which is 250 ft (76 m) and the other 1,000 ft (300 m) in length. Trains on this narrow gauge line are pulled by small and less powerful engines than on a broad gauge main line, therefore steep ascents had to be avoided. But instead of expensively boring through the mountains on a straight way, a much longer right-of-way further south was chosen that allowed gentle slopes. From 1942 to 1954 there was no train service east of Nagrota.
When the Maharana Pratap Sagar was constructed, the line had to be diverted between Jawanwala Shahr and Guler into higher grounds along the eastern shore of the new reservoir. In 1973, the section between these two stations, along with Anur, Jagatpur and Mangwal stations was abandoned, and the new alignment with several new stations opened three years later.
Conversion to broad gauge
Indian Railways has identified Pathankot-Jogindernagar route to be converted into 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge and to extend it to Mandi, and eventually to Ladakh via a new Bilaspur–Mandi–Leh line.[1]
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