Recently I had lunch with a co-worker who was born and raised in India. We talked about her home state, Indian food, and then on to tea. From tea we took a side step to the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a favorite two foot railway of mine. My friend asked me had I ever read or seen photographs of the Nilgiri Mountain Railway or of the Shimla Railway. I had heard of the Nilgiri, but never of the Shimla, and I have never really seen many photographs or read anything about the history of either line. I did discover that BBC had a series titled “Indian Hill Railways”, but I could not watch it on their site.

However, I did find several video on YouTube on each of the Indian Hill Railways. Enjoy if you watch them, they are stories of the railway, the people who work on them, and the…