The Railways of Nepal

There have been three 2' 6" narrow gauge railways in Nepal. The first was the 'Nepal Government Railway' from Raxaul (actually in India) to Amlekghanj. This opened in 1927 and closed in 1968 except for a short section at the southern end up to Birganj which was converted to metre gauge and later to broad gauge. Its purpose was to carry goods to an aerial ropeway which ran up towards Kathmandu.

The second was the Janakpur Railway which also started in India (at Jaynagar) and ran to Janakpur Dham opening in 1937. Most of the traffic was passenger as opposed to freight, particularly as Janakpur is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus. A later extension to Bizalpura was opened and this carried only light traffic in comparison. The railway was dieselised in 1993 and closed for gauge conversion in 2012/3. Nearly all the pictures shown here were of this section. Most of the former NGR locomotives eventually came here over the years.

There was a third lesser known railway associated with the Kosi Barrage Project, the pictures in this compilation are among the very few known to have been taken of it.

For my convenience, I have ordered the pictures in this compilation chronologically. This allows each visit to be viewed separately, necessarily this means the Janakpur line is explored several times.