[3] Franklin Prestage, an agent of the Eastern Bengal Railway, approached the government with a proposal to lay a steam tramway from Siliguri to Darjeeling.

Taylor, R.E., Consulting Engineer to the Government of India for Guaranteed Railways, and Franklin Prestage inspected the line and authorised the stretch from Siliguri to Kurseong open for traffic from 16 August 1880.

[8] The DHR began facing competition from buses operating on the Hill Cart Road which took less time than the railway to reach Darjeeling.

Many buildings in Darjeeling were heavily damaged and the railway was also affected, although it soon recovered and played a vital role in transporting repair materials.

[8] During World War II, the DHR transported military personnel and supplies to the camps around Ghum and Darjeeling.

[8] In 1962, the railway was realigned at Siliguri and extended by nearly 6 km (3.7 mi) to New Jalpaiguri (NJP) to meet the new broad-gauge line there.

[11] The DHR and its assets, including the stations, line and vehicles, is owned by the government of India and entrusted to the Ministry of Railways.

Several programs, divisions and departments of Indian Railways are responsible for operating, maintaining and repairing the DHR.

Trials of the refitted locomotive were disappointing, and it never entered regular service; in early 2011, it was in the Tindharia Works awaiting re-conversion to coal-firing.

After many years out of use at the Hesston Steam Museum, it was sold to Adrian Shooter in the UK and restored to working order.

Since a length of the road is flanked with buildings, the railway line often resembles urban tramway tracks.

The discovery that here the metre gauge system ends and the two-foot gauge of the Darjeeling-Himalayan railway begins, confirms what all these things hint at ... One steps into a railway carriage which might easily be mistaken for a toy, and the whimsical idea seizes hold of one that one has accidentally stumbled into Lilliput.

Sometimes we cross our own track after completing the circuit of a cone, at others we zigzag backwards and forwards; but always we climb at a steady gradient – so steady that if one embarks in a trolley at Ghum, the highest point on the line, the initial push supplies all the energy necessary to carry one to the bottom.

Like tea and the Ghurka culture, the DHR has become an essential feature of the landscape and an enduring part of Darjeeling's identity.

Protagonist Rajesh Khanna sings "Mere Sapno Ki Rani" to heroine Sharmila Tagore, who is on the train, in the 1969 film Aradhana.

An anthropomorphized version of one of the B-Class locomotives appears briefly in Disney's Planes (2013) when an airplane flies through a tunnel and nearly collides with the train.

[24] The documentary included a section on Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, with colour footage of the original steam trains in use.

The documentaries, directed by Tarun Bhartiya, Hugo Smith and Nick Mattingly, were produced by Gerry Troyna.

[26] The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society (DHRS) is a preservation and support group, founded in 1998 and with a membership of over 750 people across twenty countries.