New Jalpaiguri Holidays

The area at the lower end of the famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has arguably the world’s most complex history of changing gauges and routes.

In the early 1960s a more radical change was made. Indian Railways created a new broad-gauge rail link from Calcutta, and on a green field site south of Siliguri Town built an entirely new through broad-gauge station, New Jalpaiguri. The new broad-gauge route continued from New Jalpaiguri east and for more than 10km used the formation of the Haldibari line, so the New Jalpaiguri - Haldibari section was converted yet again - from metre-gauge to broad-gauge for the second time, its fourth incarnation!

New Jalpaiguri became a triple-gauge station, being served by the metre-gauge in the shape of the Siliguri Town - New Jalpaiguri section of the former Haldibari line, suitably realigned but not regauged, and by a new Siliguri Town - New Jalpaiguri extension of the narrow-gauge DHR.