India runs one of the largest rail networks on earth, and most of it exists to get people from one place to another as efficiently as possible. A handful of routes do something else. On these, the journey is not the cost of the destination. It is the reason to go.
1. The Konkan Railway in monsoon
Roughly seven hundred and forty kilometres down India’s west coast, from Maharashtra through Goa into Karnataka, cut through the Western Ghats with close to two thousand bridges and more than ninety tunnels. In the dry months it is a pretty ride. In monsoon it is one of the great train journeys anywhere, with waterfalls coming off the rock beside the track and the whole corridor under low cloud.
Travelling southwards, the sea and the wider valley views sit on the right side of the train. Book accordingly.
2. The Kalka to Shimla toy train
A narrow gauge line built at the turn of the twentieth century, climbing roughly ninety six kilometres from the plains into the Himalayan foothills through more than a hundred tunnels and several hundred bridges. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it takes around five hours to cover a distance a car manages in three, which is the entire appeal.
3. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway
The steepest railway in Asia, running from Mettupalayam up to Ooty on a rack and pinion system that grips a toothed rail to manage the gradient. Also UNESCO listed. The section between Kallar and Coonoor, through tea and forest, is the part people remember.
4. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
The original toy train, running since the 1880s, and the third of India’s UNESCO mountain railways. Ghum is among the highest railway stations in the country, and the Batasia Loop, where the track spirals over itself to gain height, is worth the ride on its own. Steam services run on the Darjeeling to Ghum joyride.
5. The Vivek Express
Dibrugarh in Assam to Kanyakumari at the southern tip of the mainland, the longest single train journey in India, covering more than four thousand kilometres over roughly three and a half days. Very few people ride it end to end and there is no scenic argument for doing so. The argument is that you watch the entire country change outside one window, and almost nobody has.
What nobody tells you
Reservations on Indian Railways open sixty days before departure and popular routes fill quickly, particularly the mountain railways in season. Tatkal quota opens one day ahead and goes within minutes. For daytime scenic routes, chair car or second seating with a window will serve you better than an air conditioned coach with tinted glass. And on the mountain lines, book the toy trains specifically rather than the faster parallel road transfer, because operators will often substitute one for the other without telling you.