1. India’s first sea bridge, opened in 1914. The middle lifts to let ships through, each half weighs 415 tonnes, and it was raised by hand, with levers.
Image: A train crossing the Pamban rail bridge. Shaswat Nimesh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
2. The line once ran on to Dhanushkodi. In December 1964 a cyclone wiped out the tracks and a passenger train on them. The town has stayed empty ever since.
Image: Ruins of Dhanushkodi railway station. Rangan Datta Wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
3. Darjeeling, 1880. Yes, that is a train chugging down a village’s main street. The line climbs about 2 km up the hills using zig zags and loops.
Image: A locomotive of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway passing through a hill village, 1880. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
4. Too steep for normal wheels. So on the Nilgiri line, the engine grips a toothed rail in the middle of the track and hauls itself up. It is India’s only rack railway.
Image: A Nilgiri Mountain Railway steam locomotive near Kallar. Timothy A. Gonsalves, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
5. 103 tunnels on a single hill line. The British built the Kalka Shimla railway to reach their summer capital, and threw in more than 900 bridges.
Image: A rail bridge near Kathleeghat on the Kalka Shimla line (cropped to remove a date stamp). Anup Sadi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
6. Built in 1855. The Fairy Queen pulled troop trains during the 1857 revolt, then sat on a pedestal for 34 years. Then it went back on the tracks, and Guinness called it the world’s oldest steam engine in regular service.
Image: Fairy Queen locomotive, EIR 22. Dipsbarua, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
7. Built as Victoria Terminus in 1887, the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Since 1996 it has carried Chhatrapati Shivaji’s name. And it is still a working station, not a museum.
Image: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Mumbai. Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
8. This rail bridge is higher than the Eiffel Tower. The deck sits 359 metres above the river, the highest rail bridge in the world.
Image: Chenab Rail Bridge, Reasi district. Konkan Railway Corporation Limited, GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons
9. The world’s first hospital train, running since 1991. It has an operation theatre on board and goes to villages with no proper hospital. It does not take patients to the hospital. It brings the hospital to them.
Image: New coaches of the Lifeline Express hospital train at their inauguration. Ministry of Railways (published by PIB), GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons