His stories instruct and entertain, bringing the past of Indian Railways alive in the present. Did you know that India's first steam engine never ran on tracks and was actually used to run driving mills in a factory? That the maximum speed of the first commercial train in India was 4.5 miles/hour?

The fascinating story of the network that made modern India The railways brought modernity to India. Its vast network connected the far corners of the subcontinent, making travel, communication and commerce simpler than ever before. Even more importantly, the railways played a large part in the making of the nation: by connecting historically and geographically disparate regions and people, it forever changed the way Indians lived and thought, and eventually made a national identity possible. This engagingly written, anecdotally told history captures the immense power of a business behemoth as well as the romance of train travel; tracing the growth of the railways from the 1830s (when the first plans were made) to Independence, Bibek Debroy and his co-authors recount how the railway network was built in India and how it grew to become a lifeline that still weaves the nation together. This latest volume in The Story of Indian Business series will delight anyone interested in finding out more about the Indian Railways.

The stories in this collection capture the essence of the Indian Railways - from the small-town station, at the time of the Raj, to the present day big-city station bursting at the seams. The teening and varied life of the Indian Railway station and its environs have fascinated writers from Jules Verne in the 1870s to more recently Satyajit Ray, R.K. Laxman and more modern writers. In this anthology, one of India's best-known writers makes a selection of greattest railway stories the subcontinent has produced. Julese Verne Rudyard Kipling Flora Annie Steel Hon. J.W. Best Jim Corbett Khushwant Singh Ruskin Bond Manoj Das Intizar Husain Satyajit Ray Bill Aitkin R.K. Laxman Victor Banerjee Manojit Mitra.

This handbook provides an indispensable reference guide to most aspects of the history of India’s railways. The secondary literature is surveyed, primary sources identified, statistical and cartographic data discussed, and a massive bibliography made available.

The acclaimed author recounts his epic journey across Europe and Asia in this international bestselling classic of travel literature: “Compulsive reading” (Graham Greene). In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on a four-month journey by train from the United Kingdom through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In The Great Railway Bazaar, he records in vivid detail and penetrating insight the many fascinating incidents, adventures, and encounters of his grand, intercontinental tour. Asia's fabled trains—the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express—are the stars of a journey that takes Theroux on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.