Nepal Government Railway
| Nepal Government Railway | |
|---|---|
 Nepal Government Railway in the 1950s
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| Route length: | 47 km |
| Gauge : | 762 mm ( narrow gauge ) |
The Nepal Government Railway ( NGR ) was a 47 km long narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 762 mm (2 feet 6 inches ) from Amlekhganj in Nepal to Raxaul in India operated by the Nepalese government from 1927 to 1965 .
history
As early as 1923, JV Collier of the Indian Forest Service had a narrow-gauge forest railway built to export Nepalese wood to India. Collier had been appointed by Nepal's Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana to manage the forest administration in Nepal. In the winter of 1924 Martin & Co. from Calcutta carried out a survey of how a narrow-gauge railway could be built from the border in a northerly direction to Bichako ( Amlekhganj ).
Construction began in 1926, and the Nepal Government Railway was opened on February 16, 1927. 7 steam locomotives, in particular Garratt steam locomotives from Beyer, Peacock and Company from Great Britain , 12 passenger cars and 82 freight cars were used on the route.
The railway from Amlekhganj to Raxaul was the only connection from the capital Kathmandu to India for a long time, until a road was built parallel to it . From Kathmandu the travelers hiked over the mountains and then took a truck to Amlekhganj, from where they could board the train to India. The walk only became superfluous after the Tribhuvan Highway from Kathmandu to Amlekhganj was completed in 1956. The first scheduled, daily bus service began in 1959 by the privately run company Nepal Transport Service .
closure
The Nepal Government Railway was in service until 1965 when a new trunk road made it obsolete. Then it was shut down in 1965.
film records
The Nepal Government Railway is shown in the opening scenes of the first Nepalese film Aama ("Mother"), which was filmed by the Nepalese government and released in 1964. It shows how a desperate little boy leaves the village to earn money and soothe the agony of his poor, widowed mother. After serving years as a Gurkha soldier in a foreign army, he returned home as a grown young man on the Nepal Government Railway, only to find that his mother had died. The elders of the village persuade him to stay in the village and serve the community, repeating the saying several times: "Service to the fatherland is as virtuous as service to the mother".
photos
Nepal Government Railway, 1927
NGR locomotive No. 4, around 1932
NGR locomotive, around 1947
Raxaul station, 1951
Raxaul – Simra ticket
Individual evidence
- ↑ United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce: Commerce Reports Nos. 14-26. Volume 2 1927, p. 148 (Retrieved July 26, 2013).
- ^ HW Tilman: Nepal Himalaya 1952, p. 9 (accessed on July 26, 2013).
- ^ Perceval Landon: Nepal . Constable and Co. Ltd., London 1928, pp. 197, 201 (accessed September 20, 2013).
- ↑ Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison: A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighboring Countries, Volume 14 . Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1929, p. 47 (Retrieved July 29, 2013).
- ^ Railroads . The Library of Congress. March 22, 2011. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
- ^ Garratt Locomotives produced by Beyer Peacock . Retrieved July 29, 2013.
- ↑ Kamal Ratna Tuladhar: Nepal took the bus half a century ago . In: The Kathmandu Post , September 26, 2008. Retrieved July 27, 2013.
- ^ Surya Bahadur Shrestha: Railway Development In Nepal . In: The Rising Nepal . Archived from the original on December 4, 2010 Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved July 27, 2013.
- ^ A National Transport System for Nepal . World Bank, Washington, DC June 1965, p. 22 (Retrieved May 25, 2014).
Coordinates: 27 ° 16 '31.09 " N , 84 ° 59' 22.94" O