The history of Indian trains is older than India itself. For over 150 years, the train has been part of the lives of most Indians. Today, Indian Railways transports hundreds of crores of passengers, about five times the current population of India. And, the railway lines that criss-cross the country, and are even longer than our majestic rivers, bind the landscape into a whole and give it a sense of a nation.

To explore just how trains in India have seeped into the national psyche, and to explore the gigantic enterprise that is Indian Railways, acclaimed writer Amitava Kumar took several journeys on some of the country’s celebrated trains, from the Himsagar Express, which traverses one of the world’s longest rail routes, a distance of 2,335 miles, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, to the legendary Darjeeling mountain railway that has been praised in movies, literature, and songs. He then goes into the history of Indian trains, extols the magic of train travel, and explains how the importance of the railways will only grow as more and more Indians use a variety of trains to travel out of (and between) their villages, home towns, and cities to various destinations in pursuit of work and leisure activities.