The 160-year-journey of the Indian Railways - an essential part of the nation’s social fabric - unfolds beautifully at the Railway Stadium in Mancheswar here through a wide gamut of photographs. More than 200 rare pictures on display at the exhibition take the narrative of the Indian Railways back in time from its current point, revisit memories in sepia and black and white tones to understand the transition that this organisation has gone through. The photo exhibition does not trace the history of Indian Railways sequentially from 1853 till the present. It thematically portrays the many facets of the organisation concentrating primarily on the first 100 years of its existence that was marked by turbulence for the Railways as well as the world. Through rare photographs sourced from railway archives, Press Information Bureau and railway museums, the importance of the railways in the lives of the people, its role as an integrating force, as a catalyst of history and as a mute spectator to the unfolding historical events have been showcased. The photographs divided under various sections, encompassing all the fundamental aspects of the railways, are evocative of an era long gone though it has shaped the present. The ‘Personalities’ section is of special interest as it reveals the views of some eminent leaders on the Railways - be it Mahatma Gandhi getting out of a third class railway coach or Nehru crouching on the ground at the ceremony of turning the first sod before the construction of the Quilon to Ernakulam railway line. In another photograph, one could see Bhagat Singh in a calm conversation, sitting on a cot at a Lahore railway police station, with a metal chain clinging on to him. Similarly, the sections on ‘Station Architecture’ are of immense interest as they more than anything else speak of the time in history of their construction. Their interiors are reflections of the society, the social stratification, while their exteriors present a larger picture of the developmental stage of the town and city. A section has been dedicated to the workmen, who have a major contribution in the running of the railways. The photographs reflect the hard labour which is put in to transport millions of people across thousands of kilometers marking practices most of which are still fundamental to railway working today. From the advertisements of Murphy radio and Godrej toilet soaps at the railway station and trains, to European ladies in the majestic gowns and bonnets stepping out of a railway station in Delhi to railway wagons pulled by bullocks, the exhibition has a lot to show. It also displays the involvement of the railways in almost every turmoil that the country has witnessed, be it the picture of thousands of men and women crowding into and on top of a train at the Ambala railway station during Partition, or a train chugging through water-ravaged lands during floods. Being organised by the East Coast Railway, the exhibition is on till August 6. Entry is free.