- City
- Ghum, Darjeeling
- State
- West Bengal
- Station code
- GHUM
- Zone
- Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR)
- Platforms
- 2
Ghum Railway Station offers a completely different railway experience from India's massive metropolitan terminals.
Located near Darjeeling in West Bengal, Ghum is part of the historic Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, popularly known for its narrow-gauge “Toy Train.”
Its greatest distinction is altitude.
Indian Railways material identifies Ghum as the highest-altitude railway station on Indian Railways.
Historic Darjeeling Himalayan Railway documentation records Ghum at 7,407 feet above mean sea level, equivalent to approximately 2,258 metres.
The railway reached Ghum in the nineteenth century as engineers constructed a narrow-gauge railway through the difficult Himalayan terrain between the plains and Darjeeling.
The railway uses tight curves, steep gradients, loops and reversing sections to gain altitude over a relatively short horizontal distance.
Nearby Batasia Loop is one of the most famous engineering features of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.
Ghum is also associated with the heritage character of the wider mountain railway system, where small locomotives and narrow-gauge coaches continue to travel through mountain settlements and alongside roads.
Unlike Howrah or CSMT, Ghum's importance does not come from huge passenger numbers or large numbers of platforms. Its importance comes from altitude, mountain engineering and railway heritage.
That makes it an excellent station to include in your site because it represents an entirely different aspect of Indian railway history.