Fairy Queen Train: Ride One of the World's Oldest Working Steam Locomotives From Delhi to Alwar in Rajasthan
In 1855 three engineers in Leeds, England, built a steam locomotive for the East Indian Railway Company.
They named their firm Kitson Thompson and Hewitson. The locomotive they built was designated East Indian Railway Number 22. It weighed 26 tonnes. It produced 130 horsepower. Its maximum speed was 40 kilometres per hour.
That locomotive is still running today.
One hundred and seventy one years after it left the Kitson Thompson and Hewitson factory in Leeds, the engine that became known as the Fairy Queen is still hauling passengers from Delhi Cantonment Station toward Alwar in Rajasthan on its seasonal heritage runs. In 1998 it was certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest steam locomotive in regular service. It was awarded the National Tourism Award in 1999 for the most innovative and unique tourism project in India.
The Fairy Queen is not a replica. It is not a restored reproduction. The locomotive was built by Kitson Thompson and Hewitson of England and worked on passenger and freight services for more than 55 years. The boiler that heats the water that produces the steam that drives the pistons that turn the driving wheels is the same boiler that was installed in Leeds in 1855. You are not riding a recreation of Victorian engineering. You are riding the Victorian engineering itself.
This episode is the complete story of the Fairy Queen train, one of the most extraordinary heritage railway experiences available anywhere in the world.
What You Will Discover in This Episode
The complete history of the Fairy Queen train from its construction by Kitson Thompson and Hewitson in Leeds in 1855 through its arrival in Calcutta, its designation as East Indian Railway Number 22 and its early service hauling light mail trains between Howrah and Raniganj in West Bengal
The most dramatic period of the Fairy Queen's service, its use as a troop train during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the first major armed uprising against British colonial rule, when the railways that had been built for commercial purposes became critical military logistics systems and Locomotive Number 22 found itself carrying soldiers toward one of the most consequential events in the history of the subcontinent
How the Fairy Queen was retired from active service in 1909, displayed outside Howrah Station for 34 years, moved to the Railway Zonal Training School at Chandausi in Uttar Pradesh in 1943, declared a national treasure by the Indian Government in 1972 and eventually moved to the National Rail Museum in New Delhi
The extraordinary restoration carried out at the Loco Works Perambur in Chennai in 1996 and 1997 that returned a locomotive which had not moved under its own steam for nearly ninety years to full operational condition, leading to its first commercial heritage run in July 1997 from Delhi to Alwar with an overnight stay at the Sariska Palace
The Guinness Book of Records certification in 1998 as the world's oldest steam locomotive in regular service, what this means technically and honestly, including the important context that since 2011 a companion locomotive EIR-21 Express has also been restored to operational service, making two mid-19th century Indian locomotives among the oldest working steam engines anywhere on earth
The complete sensory experience of riding the Fairy Queen train at 40 kilometres per hour through the landscape between Delhi and Alwar, the sound of a coal-fired steam locomotive under load, the smell of coal smoke, the water stops at Victorian-era water towers along the route, and why this pace transforms the journey from transportation into something genuinely different
The Rewari Railway Heritage Museum, built in 1893 and the only surviving steam locomotive shed in India, where the Fairy Queen is housed when not on its seasonal heritage runs alongside some of India's last surviving steam locomotives
The royal city of Alwar at the end of the journey, the Bala Quila fort that was never conquered by the Mughal Empire rising 304 metres above the city, the extraordinary Rajput royal collections of the City Palace museum, the romantically situated Siliserh Lake and the refined funerary architecture of the Moosi Maharani Chhatri
The Sariska Tiger Reserve 37 kilometres from Alwar, one of the most extraordinary conservation recovery stories in Indian wildlife history, where a reserve that had lost every single one of its tigers to poaching in 2005 now has fifty tigers following the world's largest tiger relocation programme launched in 2008
How the Fairy Queen train journey can be combined with the complete Neemrana Fort and Alwar heritage circuit or with our Sariska Tiger Reserve two-safari overnight tour to create one of the most completely distinctive two-day experiences available anywhere from Delhi
How 5 Senses Tours brings the complete Fairy Queen train heritage experience to international travellers as part of the Delhi and Rajasthan heritage circuit
Experience the Fairy Queen Train Heritage With 5 Senses Tours
The locomotive built in Leeds in 1855 is waiting at Delhi Cantonment Station. The water towers along the route to Alwar are ready. The Bala Quila fort above Alwar is still standing exactly as it was when the Fairy Queen first made this journey. And the tigers of Sariska, fifty of them now where there were none just seventeen years ago, are moving through the Aravalli forest that lies 37 kilometres beyond the end of the line.
Our Delhi tours cover the complete heritage of one of the world's most layered cities, the starting point for every Fairy Queen journey, at https://5sensestours.com/home-delhi-tours/
Our Sariska Tiger Reserve and Alwar tour combines two jeep safaris, morning and afternoon, inside the fifty-tiger reserve with an overnight stay inside the forest itself, the perfect companion to a Fairy Queen train arrival at https://5sensestours.com/tour/sariska-alwar-from-delhi/
Our Neemrana Fort and Alwar tour combines the complete Alwar royal heritage with an overnight stay in a thousand-year-old fort and a visit to the 15th-century Neemrana Fort Palace and its extraordinary medieval stepwell at https://5sensestours.com/tour/neemrana-fort-alwar-from-delhi/
Our Jaipur tours cover the complete circuit of Rajasthan's most extraordinary royal state for travellers extending their journey beyond Alwar at https://5sensestours.com/home-jaipur-tours/
For a customised private Fairy Queen heritage experience combining the train journey with the complete Alwar and Sariska circuit, contact us at https://5sensestours.com/
5 Senses Tours is recognised by India's Ministry of Tourism, winner of the Tripadvisor Travellers Choice Award and the Outlook Responsible Tourism Award. Every tour is private, expert guided and completely customised for your group.
