National Rail Museum
Eleven acres of locomotives in Chanakyapuri, including the oldest working steam engine on earth.
The railways remade India more thoroughly than any building in this atlas, and the museum that records them is mostly outdoors: eleven acres of track in the diplomatic quarter, with locomotives, saloons and cranes parked along it. It opened in 1977, assembled from what the regional railways had kept rather than thrown away.
The star is the Fairy Queen, built in 1855 and still in steam — the oldest working locomotive anywhere, which occasionally hauls a heritage train. Around it stand the private saloons of maharajas and viceroys, a monorail carriage from Patiala that runs on one rail and a road wheel, and the sober engineering that carried everyone else.
- 01The Fairy QueenAn 1855 locomotive in working order, and a world record holder for it.
- 02The Patiala State MonorailA surviving Ewing System engine — half railway, half road vehicle, entirely improbable.
- 03The saloonsThe Prince of Wales's carriage and the Maharaja of Mysore's, teak and brass throughout.
Closed Mondays. Largely open-air, so avoid the middle of a summer day; the toy train circuit is worth the extra ticket.