Daurala Light Railway

The Daurala Light Railway was a 2ft/610mm narrow gauge(NG) railway.

Note some records give the incorrect spelling ‘Darurala Light Railway’

Daurala Town location

The route of the light railway had not been determined. Daurala is a small town in the Upper Provinces, not listed in the ‘Imperial Gazetteer of India’. It has a railway station on the broad gauge(BG) ‘North-Western State Railway ’(NWR) between Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, the NWR ‘Ghaziabad to Lahore Mainline’.

It is presumed the light railway interconnected with the Mainline but no trace has been found

It would appear from the accounts below that the railway was associated with the ‘Daurala Sugar Factory’, which was established in 1932 .

Locomotives

Various records exist showing that 2ft/610mm(NG) locomotives were in use at Daurala.

• One record shows three locomotives were first supplied to the ‘War Department Light Railway’ in Britain were transferred to the ‘Indian Light Military Reserve Railway’ in 1919 and later (date unknown) transferred to the ‘Daurala Light Railway’ .

• A second record gives an account that notes ... one locomotive currently restored in England “was previously operated by the ‘Daurala Light Railway’ and subsequently the Upper India Sugar Factory at Khatauli“. A photograph gives the text “a modified war department Baldwin locomotive working on the Daurala light railway serving a sugar factory in India” .

• A third account lists three Baldwin locomotives located at the ‘Daurala Light Railway’ .

• A forth record states that one particular locomotive “was built in 1917, one of a total of 495 built to the order of the UK Ministry of Munitions, and saw service in France prior to being shipped to India where it initially worked on British Army supply lines. It was then transferred to the North Western Railway of India and finally provided traction at Daurala and Ryam sugar factories” .