My metamorphosis into an anorak continues ... took the long way to Shimla just so I could spend 5.5 hours on The Himalayan Queen, a narrow gauge railway covering 96km, 102 tunnels, 988 bridges including multi-storey viaducts, and 917 curves up to 48 degrees. Reaching 2075m, with gradients of 1 in 25, it was completed in 1903. Unfortunately the government is now building a new road below it, creating swathes of eroded mountain sides slipping away into the valley below, threatening to take houses, other roads and the rail line with it. The current solution is to spray patches of bare rock with concrete, and to position men with bags of tools at strategic points to patch things up along the way.
