In this article, I am going to list down the top 60 books that will help you discover Indian Railways, the 4th largest rail network in the world (Source: Wiki).
Indian Railways occupies an important place in the history of modern India. Not only did it help leaders like Mahatma Gandhi travel across the country but visualizing a nation as great as India became easier because of the railways.
So, without much ado, let’s get started.
#1. Indian Railways – A Visual Journey: Transforming a Nation’s Destiny
Author: DK
#2. A Short History of Indian Railways
Author: Rajendra B. Aklekar
#3. The Great Indian Railway Atlas
Author: Samit Roychoudhury
#4. The Railways in Assam: 1885-1947
Author: Sarah Hilaly
#5. Changing Tracks: Reinventing the Spirit of Indian Railways
Author: V. Nilakant
#6. The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories
Author: Ruskin Bond
#7. Third Class in Indian Railways
Author: Mahatma Gandhi
#8. Indian Railways: The Weaving of a National Tapestry
Authors: Bibek Debroy, Sanjay Chadha, Vidya Krishnamurthi
#9. Around India in 80 Trains
Author: Monisha Rajesh
#10. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway A Journey Through Time (1853-1871)
Author: Dr. Rita P. Bhambi
#11. India’s Railway Man: A Biography of E. Sreedharan
Author: Rajendra B. Aklekar
#12. Halt Station India: The Dramatic Tale of the Nation’s First Rail Lines
Author: Rajendra B. Aklekar
#13. The Purveyors of Destiny: A Cultural Biography of the Indian Railways
Author: Arup Chatterjee
#14. The Great Indian Railways: A Cultural Biography
Author: Arup Chatterjee
#15. The Boy Who Loved Trains
Author: Deepak Sapra
#16. Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off
Author: Bishwanath Ghosh
#17. Treasure At the Train Station: An Adventure in Mumbai
Author: Joeanna Rebello Fernandes, Rituparna Sarkar, Hitesh Sonar
#18. 500 Miles
Author: Yogesh Mali
#19. The Railway Chronicles
Author: Bibek Debroy
#20. Engines of Change: The Railroads That Made India
Author: Ian J. Kerr
#21. Building the Railways of the Raj, 1850-1900
Author: Ian J. Kerr
#22. Railways in Modern India
Author: Ian J. Kerr
#23. The Train to Darjeeling & Other Railway Tales (Kindle Edition)
Author: Sanjoy Mookerjee
#24. India, No Problem, Sahib: A Tour of India and Her Railways
Author: Peter David Jordan, Richard Paget, David Charlesworth
#25. India by Rail
Author: Royston Ellis
#26. Rail Across India: A Photographic Journey
Author: Paul C. Pet (Author), Geoffrey Moorhouse (Author), Brian Hollingsworth (Author)
#27. Steam Locomotives of Indian Railways
Author: Twahir Alam
#28. Diesel Locomotives of Indian Railways
Author: Twahir Alam
#29. Electric Locomotives of Indian Railways
Author: Twahir Alam
#30. Welcome Aboard the Indian Railways
Author: Savitha Ram Mohan
#31. Railways and the Raj
Author: Christian Wolmar
#32. Crossing the Lines
Author: Pramod Kumar
#33. Exploring Indian Railways
Author: Bill Aitken
#34. Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self
Author: Laura Bear
#35. Indian Railway: Trains of India (Kindle Edition)
Author: Motorkid Junior
#36. Indian Railways (Kindle Edition)
Author: Amit Ahlawat
#37. India Junction: A Window to the Nation
Editor: Seema Sharma
#38. Our Indian Railway: Themes in Indias Railway History
Author: Roopa Srinivasan, Manish Tiwari, and Sandeep Silas
#39. 27 Down: New Departures in Indian Railway Studies
Author: Ian J. Kerr
#40. Indian Railways – Strategy for Reforms
Author: K.B. Verma
#41. The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia
Author: Paul Theroux
#42. The Great Indian Railway Romance (Kindle Edition)
Author: Rajendra Aklekar
#43. My Derailments With Truth
Author: Ateesh Singh
#44. Indian Railways as Connected with British Empire in the East
Author: Sir William Patrick Andrew
#45. History of the East Indian Railway, Part 1
Author: George Huddleston
#46. Tracking Modernity: India’s Railway and the Culture of Mobility
Author: Marian Aguiar
#47. Army Express: A Great Indian Train Travel Story
Author: Wingston Mathews
#48. Railways of India
Author: J. N. Westwood
#49. Railways in Modern India
Author: Ramswarup D Tiwari
#50. Imperial Technology and ‘Native’ Agency: A Social History of Railways in Colonial India, 1850-1920 (Kindle Edition)
Author: Aparajita Mukhopadhyay
#51. Tracks of Change: Railways and Everyday Life in Colonial India
Author: Ritika Prasad
#52. Railways in India, by an Engineer
Author: Anonymous
#53. Railway Construction in India
Author: S. Settar, Bhubanes Misra, A.G. Lal
#54. Light Railways in India 1899: Description & Maps (Kindle Edition)
Author: DC Robinson
#55. To Kerala and Beyond on the Konkan Railway: South West India, Kerala and Goa by Train (Kindle Edition)
Author: Keith Harris
#56. South Indian Railway: In 1900 (Kindle Edition)
Author: DC Robinson
#57. History of Railway in Rajasthan (Kindle Edition)
Author: Dr. Mohanlal Gupta
#58. Indian Railways
Author: MA Rao
#59. Strangers in My Sleeper: Rail Journeys and Encounters on Indian Railways
Author: Peter Riordan
#60. Indian Steam in the 1970s (Kindle Edition)
Author: George Woods
So, there goes my list of 60 popular and most-read Indian Railways books. How many have you read till now? How many are you planning to order? Is there any book that I have missed out on?
Please do let me know in the comments below. Also, do check out my article on the 25 most popular books to explore India.
Thanks for this interesting list.
I am a railwayman by profession and I like to collect and read books about railways in different parts of the world. I have read 12 books out of the list and reviewed 7 of them on Amazon India.
May I also add a few books to the list:
1. R.R.Bhandari (2005) Indian Railways: Glorious 150 Years
2. Christian Wolmar (2017) Railways & the Raj: How the Age of Steam Transformed India
3. Seema Sharma (ed) 2014) India Junction: A Window to the Nation
4. Andrew Martin (2013) Night Train to Jamalpur
5. M.A.Rao (1988) Indian Railways
6. Paul Theroux (1975) The Great Railway Bazaar
7. Ian J.Kerr (ed) 27 Down: New Departures in Indian Railway Studies
8. R.R.Bhandari (1981) Locomotives in Steam
9. Ashwani Lohani ( ) Smoking Beauties: Steam Engines of the World
10. Bill Aitkens (1974) Exploring Indian Railways
11. J.N.Sahni (1953) Indian Railways: One Hundred Years 1853-1953
12. Roopa Srinivasan, Manish Tiwari and Sandeep Silas (eds) (2006) Our Indian Railways: Themes in Indian History
13. Khushwant Singh (1956) Train to Pakistan
You are welcome, Mr. Sinha. I am glad you liked this list and I would also like to thank you for sharing 13 more books. I will check if these are available online and then will either update the same article or write a new one. Meanwhile, I am railfan myself and if you don’t mind, I would like to connect with you offline. Please let me know if that’s fine with you.