Steam Locomotives of India~ the complete site on Indian steam

Photographs and content - Dileep Prakash

 

Darjeeling Railway	Nilgiri Railway	Heritage
This Himalayan Railway is a World Heritage Site...	This is the only Rack rail in India.	Fairy Queen - oldest working loco in the world.
Museums	Private Steam	Preserved Locos
National Rail & Mysore Museums.	Locos working in Upper Assam...	Complete list of preserved steam...
Steam News	Loco Graveyards	Wankaner
Latest steam updates...	Over 200 locos await the axe...	The Last bastion of steam...
Chuk~Chuk-Coo	Image Gallery	Steam Data
Sound of music...	Visual delights...	Complete loco data...
Links	ISRS	Dileep Prakash
Steam links you need...	Steam Society	That's me! Your host...

Things change. Matter yields to time.But there is this thing about memories and images. You can't put a fence round them, and say, here they end. I, and some other folks who have been growing up around the same time, have a memory in their midst that most after us won't ~ the immense toot of the steam engine whistle as she chugged her way around the country, the hot breath she spewed as she drew up into the small stations, her huge, majestic wheels clanging back and forth.

As a child I would stare at them, fascinated at the dark columns of smoke that disappeared into the cobalt of the sky. In the last few years I recorded what was left of those images. Sometimes I had to scramble, because around the country, steam engines are being shunted out---they are yielding place to new diesel and electric locos, and are retiring in quiet grace into scrapyards.

These days, folk say, the Internet is going to get stuff all over the place, all over the country. In my book, something else has already done that before---my steam engines.

The following steam locos are still running in India:

Class	Gauge	Manufacturer	Built	Nos.	Location
B Class Saddle Tanks	2 ft	Sharp Stewart, Glasgow / North British, Glasgow / Baldwin Loco Works, USA / DHR Tindharia.	1920's-60's	14	Darjeeling Matheran
0-4-0 ST	2 ft	W.G. Bagnall, Stafford England	1894, 1924	2	Ledo
Baby Sivok	2 ft	Orenstein and Koppel, Berlin	1911	1	Darjeeling
X Class Rack	1000 mm	Swiss Locomotive Works, Winterthur, Switzerland	1920's-50's	8	Nilgiris
YP & YG	1000 mm	Telco / Vulcan Foundry Newton-le-Willows, England	1950-60	3	RoyalOrient
Fairy Queen	5ft 6in	Oldest working loco in the world - Kitson,Thompson & Hewittson, Leeds	1855	1	Rail Museum
HGS	5ft 6in	Beardmore & Company, England	1920	1	Howrah
WP	5ft 6in	Chitranjan Locomotive Works/CRW Poland	1960's	2	Rail Museum
P-2	1ft 3in	Krauss Munich, Germany	1950's	1	Bal Bhawan
AWE 1	5ft 6in	Baldwin Locomotive Company, Philadelphia, USA	1943	1	Korba
MAWD	1000mm	Meter Gauge American War Department,Baldwin Locomotive Company, Philadelphia, USA	1944	1	Guwahati
KC 520	2 ft 6in	North British, Glasgow	1905	1	Simla
Bagnall No5	2 ft 6in	W G Bagnall	1905	1	Nagpur
PSMT	Monorail	Orenstein and Koppel, Berlin	??	1	Rail Museum
ZB	2 ft 6in	??	??	1	Pathankot
WL 15005	5ft 6in	Chitranjan Locomotive Works	??	1	Rail Museum

 
 

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© 2001-2 Dileep Prakash - All rights reserved Acknowledgments : A lot of the data presented on this site is from Geoff Coward; Harsh Vardhan and National Rail Museum, N.Delhi. Many thanks to them. .