In this article, I am going to list down the top 80 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.
List of 80 Most Popular Indian Railways Books
#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. Railways and the Raj
Author: Christian Wolmar
#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 (Kindle Edition)
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
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. Welcome Aboard the Indian Railways
Author: Savitha Ram Mohan
#28. Crossing the Lines
Author: Pramod Kumar
#29. Indian Railways (Kindle Edition)
Author: Amit Ahlawat
#30. India Junction – A Window to the Nation
Editor: Seema Sharma
#31. Our Indian Railway – Themes in India’s Railway History
Author: Roopa Srinivasan, Manish Tiwari, and Sandeep Silas
#32. 27 Down – New Departures in Indian Railway Studies
Author: Ian J. Kerr
#33. Indian Railways – Strategy for Reforms
Author: K.B. Verma
#34. The Great Railway Bazaar – By Train Through Asia
Author: Paul Theroux
#35. The Great Indian Railway Romance (Kindle Edition)
Author: Rajendra Aklekar
#36. Resurgent Railways
Author: Dr. Rajinder Kumar Malik
#37. Tracking Modernity – India’s Railway and the Culture of Mobility
Author: Marian Aguiar
#38. Army Express – A Great Indian Train Travel Story
Author: Wingston Mathews
#39. Railways in Modern India
Author: Ramswarup D Tiwari
#40. Tracks of Change – Railways and Everyday Life in Colonial India
Author: Ritika Prasad
#41. Railways in India, by an Engineer
Author: Anonymous
#42. Railway Construction in India
Author: S. Settar, Bhubanes Misra, A.G. Lal
#43. Light Railways in India 1899 – Description & Maps (Kindle Edition)
Author: DC Robinson
#44. To Kerala and Beyond on the Konkan Railway – South West India, Kerala and Goa by Train (Kindle Edition)
Author: Keith Harris
#45. South Indian Railway – In 1900 (Kindle Edition)
Author: DC Robinson
#46. History of Railway in Rajasthan (Kindle Edition)
Author: Dr Mohanlal Gupta
#47. Indian Railways
Author: MA Rao
#48. Indian Steam in the 1970s (Kindle Edition)
Author: George Woods
#49. Railonama
Author: Anupama Sharma
#50. The Illustrated Guide to the South Indian Railway (Kindle Edition)
Author: South Indian Railway Company Ltd.
#51. Memoirs of a Railway Man – Life on Rails (Kindle Edition)
Author: MK Rao
#52. Palace on Wheels – A Royal Train Journey
Author: Dharmendar Kanwar
#53. Darjeeling Himalayan Railway – India 1921 (Kindle Edition)
Author: DC Robinson
#54. Bridges and Crossings – Meeting to Part and Parting to Meet
Author: Meera Sundararajan
#55. Whistling Steam – Romance of Indian Rails
Author: Dileep Prakash
#56. A Journey to Shimla by Toy Train
Author: Sumit Raj Vashisht
#57. How the Railways Came to India
Author: Anuradha Kumar
#58. Bankruptcy to Billions – How the Indian Railways Transformed
Author: Sudhir Kumar, Shagun Mehrotra
#59. Railway Man – An Engineer’s Memoir
Author: RR Jaruhar
#60. Darjeeling Revisited – A Journey on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
Author: Bob Cable
#61. Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) – From Lifeline to Oblivion
Author: VM Govind Krishnan
#62. From Earth to Sky – A Photographic Journey on the Kalka – Shimla Railway
Author: Sanjay Kaushal, Shubh Mohan Singh
#63. The Storyteller on Tracks
Author: Soumita Roy
#64. Steam – India’s Last Steam Trains
Author: Mark Tully, Stephen Dupont
#65. Relics of the Raj
Author: CJ Gammell
#66. Darjeeling’s Wonderful Railway
Author: David Charlesworth, Richard Wallace, David Churchill, and Others
#67. Narrow Gauge Railways – Two Feet and Under
Author: Leslie S. Robertson, Andrew Neale
#68. Indian Railways – One Hundred Years (1853 – 1953)
Author: JN Sahni
#69. Trains at a Glance (July 2019 – June 2020 Edition)
View PDF Version | View Table Index
#70. Vibes – Incessant Journey of Thoughts
Author: Mizuma Lenin
#71. 42 Summers – A Journey With the Indian Railways
Author: Ashok Kumar Jain
#72. Close Encounters on Parallel Lines (Kindle Edition)
Author: Venkateshwaran Anand
#73. Footprints on the Track
Edited By: Noel Thomas
#74. Hill Railways of the Indian Subcontinent (Kindle Edition)
Author: Richard Wallace
#75. Anchoring a City Line 1899 – 1999 – The History of the Western Suburban Railway and its Headquarters in Bombay
Author: Sharada Dwivedi & Rahul Mehrotra
#76. India’s Disappearing Railways – A Photographic Journey
Author: Angus McDonald
#77. Four Decades of Indian Railways (1950 – 1990)
Author: RN Saxena
#78. India by Road and Rail – Diary of an Overland Journey in Nehru’s Time
Author: Daniel Griffin
#79. Journey of a Railway Man (Kindle Edition)
Author: Om Prakash Kesari
#80. Local Passenger – Short Stories Based on Indian Railway Journeys
Author: Shardul Dave
So, there goes my list of 80 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.
Disclaimer: The above list is just a compilation of books on Indian Railways available online for purchase. It is not a review list. Also, this doesn’t include books that are available for purchase at the National Rail Museum, Regional Rail Museums, and other coffee table books released monthly/quarterly/yearly by zonal railways.
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.
Thank you for featuring my book” Bridges and Crossings”. I am a child of the Indian Railways and I have always considered trains as my second home
Meera
You are most welcome, Meera ma’am. It’s my honour to feature your book on the list.
One of the best books on IR is 100 Years of Indian Railways by J N Sahni brought out to celebrate the centenary of Indian Railways.
Thank you for recommending this, sir. I have now added this book to the list.