Places to Visit
Barog Railway Station
There is something magnetically charming about the hill railways and their picturesque stations. One can sit for hours on the benches at these stations and just watch the toy trains whistling and chugging away or take long walks on the ever-bending tracks in the forests.
On the Kalka-Shimla heritage track, there are 18 such small stations. But the most-popular and also the most-visited is the Barog station. The station has also the longest tunnel of the Kalka-Shimla railways and old wooden structures built more than 100 year ago.
How to reach
Surrounded by a thick pine forest, Barog station is located at an altitude of 1531 meters on the Barog-Solan road. On this road, around 5 kms from Barog towards Solan, a narrow path cuts off the main road and leads you to the station.
It’s a nice walk of around 400 meters as you cross a small group of houses and a patch of pine forest to reach the beautiful Barog station. You can reach Barog either from Kumarhatti or Solan as one link road connects all these three towns.
Barog station
The Barog station is the first halt between Kalka and Shimla. Trains on way to Shimla stop here for a short time during which passengers can enjoy the snacks at the railways canteen here. There is a nice paint job done on the tracks at the station, further beautifying it.
Wooden beauties
The station has two main wooden structures, one that houses the offices of the station superintendent and the station master. The other one is the railways rest house. Designed in the cottage style, the rest house and the main station office building were built in 1902, a year before the first train had gone chugging up.
According to Barog station superintendent Dharam Dutt Upadhyay, both the structures have been kept the way they were built.
“The roof is the same, the pillars are the same, the windows, the ceilings, everything has been kept the way it was. Even the bathrooms, for that matter. The taps and wash basins are Manchester-made and are still used,” said Mr Upadhyay.
The rest house was built for the British officials travelling to Shimla in the days of the Raj. Most of them used to stay at the Barog station rest house before resuming their journey to Shimla.
“The reason was that before reaching Shimla they wanted to get acclimatised to the weather as most of them used to come from the hot plains of Delhi and beyond,” added Mr Upadhyay.
Tunnel Number 33
At the far end of the Barog station begins the longest tunnel of Kalka-Shimla railways, known popularly as the ‘Tunnel Number 33.” The tunnel length is 1143 meters. “Of the total 107 original tunnels, 102 tunnels are operational and the Tunnel Number 33 is the longest of them,” said Mr Upadhyay. This tunnel has withstood bad weather conditions and seepage for over 100 years but remains intact.
According to Mr Upadhyay, the hill above this tunnel is around 380 meters in height and water seeps constantly.
But the station found a way to utilise this water.
“We have channelised the seeping water, which is collected in a tank and used at this station and transported to other stations as well,” said Mr Upadhyay. “Thanks to this tunnel, Barog station is popular,” he added with a smile.
