The railway was built under the direction of Herbert Septimus Harington between 1898 and 1903 to connect Shimla, the summer capital of India during the British Raj, with the rest of the Indian rail system.

[1] Shimla (then spelt Simla), which was settled by the British shortly after the first Anglo-Gurkha war, is located at 7,116 feet (2,169 m) in the foothills of the Himalayas.

This meant that twice a year it was necessary to transfer the entire government between Calcutta and Shimla by horse and ox drawn carts.

[3] Fresh surveys were again made in 1895 from Kalka to Solan with a view to determine whether a 1 in 12 rack or 1 in 25 adhesion line should be chosen.

Eventually the government agreed that the gauge was too narrow for was essentially a capital city and for military purposes.

[2] As a result, the contract with the railway company was revised on 15 November 1901 and the line gauge changed to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) with the track built to date being regauged.

Due to the high capital and maintenance costs and difficult working conditions, the railway was allowed to charge higher fares than on other lines.

[3] Once it came under the control of the government the line was originally managed as an independent unit from the North West Railway office in Lahore until 1926, when it was transferred to Delhi Division.

[13] For about a week, beginning on 11 September 2007, a UNESCO team visited the railway to inspect it for possible selection as a World Heritage Site.

The KSR and its assets, including the stations, line and vehicles, belong to the government of India under the Ministry of Railways.

226 which spans a deep valley which required that it had to be constructed in five stages with each level having its own stone arched tier.

Later classified as B-class by the North Western State Railway, they were manufactured by the British Sharp, Stewart and Company.

Later classed K and K2 by the North Western State Railway, they handled most of the rail traffic during the steam era.

However, they quickly fell into disfavour because it often took all day for enough freight to be assembled to justify operating a goods train hauled by one of these locomotives.

These 68-long-ton (69.09 t; 76.16-short-ton) locomotives were soon transferred to the Kangra Valley Railway, and were converted to 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge in Pakistan.

[19] Six locomotives of that class were built in 2008 and 2009 by the Central Railway Loco Workshop in Parel, with updated components and a dual-cab body providing better track vision.

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