Kalka is the railhead for the Kalka-Shimla Railway which runs till Shimla, the once summer capital of the British Raj.

In the late 1850s, the British Government in India decided to relocate their capital from Calcutta to Shimla during the summer months to protect the European population from the intense heat of the Bengal plains.

Notably, both Howrah and Kalka stations featured internal carriageways along the platforms to allow the Viceroy and other dignitaries to access their rail coaches directly.

[6] The revered freedom fighter Netaji Subash Chandra Bose boarded this train from Gomoh on the night of 17 January, 1941 while escaping the British Raj to Peshawar.

[10] 15 coaches of the Kalka Mail derailed on the Kanpur-Fatehpur line near the Fatehpur railway station on the afternoon of 10 July 2011.

Causation is unsolved though poor maintenance of the locomotive is suspected because the engine had begun swaying sideways just before the accident.