Indian Railways to run a glass-enclosed vistadome coach on the Kalka-Shimla route

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Indian Railways will run a glass-enclosed vistadome coach on the Kalka-Shimla route in the next ten days. Tickets for this see-through coach — catering to mostly foreign tourists would cost more than Rs. 500 per seat.

“This coach is an old second-class coach which has been refurbished. Seats have been upgraded and we have installed glass all around so that the tourists can sit in the train and enjoy the beauty of the area without even stepping out,” said Divisional Railway Manager, Ambala, DC Sharma.

Five things to know about the vistadome coach:

1. For the first time, tourists in Shimla will be able to experience snow and rainfall in this glass-enclosed coach.

2. The only such coach in a narrow gauge network exists in the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR).

3. The vistadome coach will run on the 95.5 km route, and it has been built locally in 100 days at a cost of around Rs. 10 lakh.

4. The coach has a capacity of 36 seats with no toilets or catering for the time being.

5. Coaches with transparent roofs are run in broad gauge networks between Mumbai and Goa and between Visakhapatnam and Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh.

The Indian Railways’ research and development wing will begin efforts to increase the speed of trains on the Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge line from 25kmph to 35kmph. Also, the section will see a hop-on hop-off (HOHO) service during the tourist season. The HOHO service, which is common in Eurorail, allows tourists to travel without booking months in advance.

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