Special Post: Gwalior Light Railway - Narrow Gauge Spottings!

GLR NG train hauled by a NDM5 loco | © Soumo's Railways

Many of you must be wondering, especially my Instagram and Twitter followers, what is the special YouTube post that is supposed to come up today. So here it goes - I am taking you to Gwalior today, to show the Gwalior Light Railway. This video was actually kept safely in my archives for last two weeks, and was meant for a special occasion, like today, as my blog's arm on YouTube crossed a mini milestone of 2K subscribers.

As I wrote in previous posts that earlier this month I went on a long trip to central India. This was quite a long trip, actually a work cum backpacking trip, where I was supposed to cover about 4500+ km in 19 days. Unfortunately I fell sick and had to abort the trip midway and I boarded the train to home on the 11th day of the trip. So, sadly Gwalior happened to be the last stop of this wrecked trip. While I was supposed to meet some people and do office work in Gwalior, my main aim was to see the Gwalior Light Railway. The century old narrow gauge railway network, established by the Royals of the former Princely State of Gwalior, still exists but unfortunately now only on a single route, that too is vulnerable to gauge conversion.

Through a railway crossing | © Soumo's Railways

Gwalior Light Railway is now wholly owned and operated by the north Central Zone of the Indian Railways. The station is located on the platform 5 of GWL-Gwalior Junction Railway station. There are about three (03) narrow gauge trains departs and three arrives in a day. The first train runs from Gwalior NG to Sheopur Kalan and it takes roughly about 10 hours to cover about 100+ km distance.

There has been serious efforts to convert this solely existing narrow gauge route into broad gauge. Now this existing route of Gwalior Light Railway is said to be world's longest narrow gauge railway route. There were efforts to secure UNESCO recognition for the same but it failed for some unknown reason. The tracks of route is also said to be the narrowest in the world. So if this route is discontinued for gauge conversion, something very special will be lost forever.

Featured here, is the 52175 Gwalior Sabalgarh Passenger. This was being hauled by a NDM5 Narrow Gauge diesel locomotive no. 807! You can watch the video here:

It was indeed a great experience to ride on this train. Actually I did not travel on this train as shown here, but I took the Gwalior - Sheopur Kalan one on the previous day. I managed to ride from Gwalior to Ghosipura, the first station on the route. I did not risk climbing on the train's roof due to my illness. Maybe next time if I am lucky!

Closer view of NDM5 no 807 | © Soumo's Railways

Now, do take some time to read out the IRFCA page on Gwalior's NDM locos here.

I am so proud to cover and present Gwalior Light Railway to my blog readers and my blog's followers on other social media handles. I do have more media on Gwalior Light Railway which I shall share in future. I hope you like this special post celebrating a small achievement on YouTube.



Here is the RF Data:
Date: November 10, 2017

Place: GWO - Gwalior Narrow Gauge Station

Zone (Spotting location): NCR - North Central Railway
Loco: KGP - NDM5 NG Diesel Locomotive (no. 807)

Loco Shed: GWO/GWL - Gwalior

Loco Zone: NCR - North Central Railway

Train: GWO-Gwalior to SBL-Sabalgarh Passenger.

Thanks for stopping by. As always, corrections, comments, suggestions new ideas, travel tips (or anything) are very much welcome and appreciated.

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