Mobility, tropicality and landscape: the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, 1881–1939

•Employs a more-than-representational historical methodology.•Emphasizes the role of embodiment, movement and technology in landscape experience.•Shows that modes and technologies of travel influenced the travel-tourism dichotomy.•Advocates an emphasis on technology in the phenomenological study of landscape.

In 1881 the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) commenced service between Siliguri, on the Bengal plains, and the hill-station of Darjeeling, 40 miles north and nearly 7000 feet above. Its open, ‘Lilliputian’ carriages climbed narrow, hill-side rails, hoisting passengers from lowland heat into bracing mountain air. While the train is typically considered a mode of transport, it also constitutes a technology of perception and social space. This paper examines how one railway mediated experiences of travel and landscape. It shows how the DHR formed a rolling enclave in and through which Western travelers encountered a colonial frontier, reinforcing passengers' identities and generating touristic modes of observation. It explores how the train's structure and motion neutralised perceived and actual hazards of the Indian environment, while rendering the track-side surroundings a series of sights for aesthetic contemplation. Finally, it examines how the DHR integrated with perceiving bodies and choreographed the passing terrain, thus demonstrating the value of attending to material technology in the phenomenological study of landscape.