the Nilgiri Hill Railway, India

A feature that is likely to make passengers feel uneasy!

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway is a 46 km (29 mile) long metre gauge single track line, opened in stages between 1899 and 1908. It involves 208 curves, 16 tunnels, and 250 bridges. The uphill journey takes around 4 hours 50 minutes, and the downhill journey takes 3 hours 25 minutes.

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in July 2005 and is claimed to be the oldest and the steepest rack and pinion technology, using the Abt system. It is the only such line in India and is still steam worked. As it now operates, the line has an adhesion section for 7.2 km (4.5 miles) up to the foothills station of Kallar (Kullar) where the rack rail system begins and runs at a gradient of 1:12.5 (8%) up to Coonoor. Beyond Coonoor up to the last station at Ooty or Oottacamund the track has a ruling gradient of 1:23 (4.4%).