The Kalka-Shimla rail link, a Unesco world heritage site, is incurring huge losses to the Railways amounting to Rs 18 crore a year, a senior railway official said.

Attributing the loss to the huge margin between income and expenditure, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of Ambala Division, Mr P K Sanghi, said that the earnings from the toy train service was around Rs 12 crore a year, falling well short of the maintenance expenses that mount to as much as Rs 30 crore a year.

“Railways' main source of income is freight carriage, which does not take place on this track. This is one of the main reasons for the low income,” Mr Sanghi said.

“As part of security and maintenance measures, we need to inspect all 102 tunnels and 891 bridges that come under the rail link apart from the range of mountains and forests around it. This proves to be a costly affair,” he added.

Mr Sanghi, however, said that given the international importance of the heritage site, the Railways do not consider the service from commercial point of view and it will continue to introduce new measures to attract more and more tourists.

Mr Sanghi also gave information about the range of initiatives proposed by the Railways in a bid to increase popularity of the toy train service and attract more tourists. “Apart from availing special coaches to the tourists on booking basis, we are also planning to introduce music and other recreation facilities for the passengers,” he said.

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