India has had operating railways for well-over 150 years: railways that have played a central and well-documented role in the making of India in the colonial and post-colonial eras. This handbook provides a reference guide for researchers interested in almost any facet of the history, colonial and post-colonial, of these railways. The secondary literature is identified and surveyed, primary sources and their locations identified, statistical and cartographic data discussed and presented, and a massive bibliography made available. This handbook is the indispensable tool for anyone seeking to understand India's railways and the roles they played in the making of modern India.

First published in 1985, this Atlas uses over 50 specially drawn maps to trace the rise and fall of the railways’ fortunes, and is supported by an interesting and authoritative text. Financial and operating statistics are clearly presented in diagrammatic form and provide a wealth of information rarely available to the student of railway history. Freeman and Aldcroft provide the basis for a new understanding of the way in which the railways transformed Britain by the scale of their engineering works, by shrinking national space and reorganising the layouts of urban areas. Maps show the evolution of early wagon routes into the first railway routes, the frenetic activity of the ‘Railway Mania’ years, and the consolidation of these lines into a national network. This exciting presentation of railway development will interest the enthusiast as well as the more general student of British transport history.