Indian Railways has suspended the Rail traffic on the UNESCO world heritage site of the Kalka-Shimla track, popularly known as the Toy Train. Himachal Pradesh is witnessing heavy rains for a couple of days, resulting in mudslides. The services of the train has been suspended till Tuesday owing to mudslides on tracks, IANS reported, quoting an official. Landslides were also reported at several places along the tracks in Solan district, some 65 km from the state capital.
“Traffic on the rail line has been suspended on Monday and Tuesday due to slides, water logging and debris on the tracks. Work on clearing the muck is on,” a senior railway official told IANS.
Toy trains, as they are popularly called, run on the century-old Kalka-Shimla rail line. Each train has seven coaches and can accommodate nearly 200 passengers. The 96-km-long narrow gauge railroad, originally built to ferry Europeans to Shimla, the then summer capital of British India, was chosen by the Unesco as a world heritage site in 2008.
Not just the train service, but the entire state of Himachal Pradesh has been hit hard by incessant rains. Road traffic has been severely impacted with many roads caved, and bridges washed away with overflowing rivers in the Manali, Shimla and Kangra regions.
Earlier in the day, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu cautioned the people and requested them to stay indoors in view of the heavy rainfall that may be witnessed in the next 24 hours.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) on July 10 predicted moderate to heavy rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms in various districts of HP.
