Detailed guidelines have been issued for heritage conservation covering maintenance of Steam Locomotives, up-keep of Hill Railways, promotion of Hill and Steam tourism, strengthening Railway Museums, conservation of buildings, artefacts, digitization and online dissemination of Railway Heritage etc.

There are 21 Rail Museums, 16 Heritage Galleries and 9 Heritage parks on Indian Railways.

There are five Hill Railways namely Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR), Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR), Kalka Shimla Railway (KSR), Matheran Light Railway (MLR) and Kangra Valley Railway (KVR). Out of these, three Hill Railways namely DHR, KSR and NMR have been declared as World Heritage sites by UNESCO.

Four Hill Railways namely DHR, KSR, NMR and MLR have been identified for monetisation. As outsourcing has not been done at this stage, details are not available.

This information was given by the Minister of Railways, Commerce & Industry and Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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DJN/MKV