Himalayan Times (1961)

Six Himalayan Time9

A SMALL RAILWAY WITH BIG PROBLEMS

By Rattan Lall, General .Manager, N F. R.

Although the North-
east Frontier Railway is
the smallest of all the
Zonal Railways its prob.
lems are by no means
small'. Created in 1968
to taokle the speoial needs
of the frontier region and
to provide effective means
of transport for men and
material. between Assam
and the T^st o'f the coun-
try, the Railway Zone
claims five per cent of
the total route milage
of the Indian Railways.

This portion of the
Indian Railways has pas-
sed through various or-
deals. Wear and tear of
its permanent way and
rolling stook was consi-
derable during the lust
war. Th e was followed
by partition which severed
the rail link to Assam
and a portion of West
Bengal from rest of the
oouotry Devastating
floods raged in 1964 and
1955 affeoted the new
Assam Link, route, dis-
locating traffic for months
together

The Railway has suc-
cessfully tackled the ini-
tial problems that onoe
beset its path. With the
completion of work on
the Assam Link Route
and opening of "the Brah-
maputra Bridge as well

as the coming of broad-
gauge to Siliguri, it is
hoped, that the major
bottlenecks in the Rail-
nay will be eliminated.

Carved out from the
bifurcated North Eastern
Railwft-', the new Railway
serves ".0 ) tea gardens in
West Bengal and 800
in Assam and constitutes
their main mode of trans-
port. Besides,, it is the
only outlet tor petroleum
and its produots from the
Digboi Of Refinery. .

Th« other prinoipal
commodities carried by
the Railway are ooal and
timber from AsBam and
jute from Kihar and West
Bengal. Its chief inward
traffic is sugar, salt, food
grains, pulses, tea. garden
stores and piece-goods.

The Partition led to
the formation of Assam
Railway which had to
begin from a scratch The
severance of rail links to
Assam and West Bengal
as a result of partition
necessitated construction
of Assam Rail links.

The alternative link
was opened to goods t rail o
in December 1949 and
passenger traffic in Janu-
ary 1950.

With the regrouping
io April 1952 the Assam

April 9, 1961

Railway became a part
of the North Eastern
Railway.

The First Five Year
Plan was mainly devoted
to the task of absorbing
the shock- of the Parti-
tion. But just when the
Railway was on its way
to recovery, there was a
fresh setback from the
devastating floods men-
tioned eatlier. '

During the successive
rainy seasons also the
Link Route was ravaged
by floods though not as
seriously as those in 1954
and 1935. J

Topographical oondi.
tions of the region nre'
peculiar to itself and cons-
titute a challenge to the
ingenuity ol those respon-
sible tor maintaining the
train services. For most
of its length, the line
passes through sub.mon-
tane region and cuts ao-
ross the drainage of the
country st many places
where a number of tur-
bulent rivers from the
Himalayas rush into the
plains in their maiden
fury, sometimes with a
velocity of as much as
26 to 28 ft. per second.

Due to this faotor,
the railway track had
always been subjected to
repeated breaches. But
whatever' might be the
obstacles, stablisation of
this Link Route, which
is the lifeline to Assam,