Pausing in Patna

On a trip from Delhi to Darjeeling I stopped off for a day in Patna with the intention of visiting two narrow gauge railways in the area. Unusually both were still owned by a private company, the Martin Burn Organisation of Calcutta, which ran two extremely busy 24'' gauge steam worked commuter lines there until closure in 1964, as well as numerous other railways.

The situation on the 2'6'' Futwah - Islampur Railway was not good. No trains were running when I visited on 2 December 1976. It transpired there had been no trains since 17 September that year, the reason being that the workers were on strike. Quite a number of striking employees were at the railway, but no work was being done. Three of the four locos were present, no.1H and 3H were dead, while no.4H was dismantled. The fourth loco, 2H, was stuck down the line somewhere, unable to return due to eleven kilometres of track being damaged. I had a look round, including inspecting a nice old carriage, but decided not to linger in the circumstances.

I believe the railway - 64 kms/40 miles long - reopened in due course with complete closure not taking place until 1987, the line later being converted to broad gauge.

3H was a Manning, Wardle 0-6-2T. The Railway had three of these from new in 1919 and another came secondhand in 1963.

Things were better on the Ara - Sasaram Railway, trains were running. This 2'6'' gauge railway was 111 kms/ 69 miles long. As far as I could discern, there were four working and four out of use locos at the time of my visit, plus at least one diesel railcar. The steam locos were four class F 2-4-2T built by Hunslet Engine Co of Leeds and four class I 0-6-2T also from Hunslets.

The railway was closed in February 1978 by agreement with the Government, but apparently due to various legal problems, it was the early 2000s before a broad gauge line between Ara and Sasaram came into use.

0-6-2T 16I, being prepared to take an afternoon train from Ara, was the last class I, constructed by Hunslet Engine Co in 1956.

A poor picture of one of the F class 2-4-2T, dating from 1910, and definitely out of use.

0-6-2T 16I on its way to the station.

Above left: The loco waits at Ara station for departure time on its two coach train and, right, leaving in the late afternoon. There were other services down the line which I didn't see.

Left: Some late running passengers try to get aboard.

Broad gauge shunter at Patna was this nice old class HGS 2-8-0 26748 built in 1920 by William Beardmore of Glasgow and one of many of this standard BESA heavy goods type supplied to various Indian railways.

At Patna an evening commuter train, 412 Danpur to Rajgir, leaves hauled by a class HPS2 4-6-0 24259, built by Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows in 1949. Other broad gauge steam seen in the area were WP 4-6-2 and WG 2-8-2 including one, 8577, with a Giesl ejector.

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