Darjeeling needs the railway to make it special. The trick would be to speed up the journey, a difficult task given the age of the locomotives, or to offer special tourist trains which might stop off halfway up where, at the moment, there are only spartan local hotels. The slow way up the hill is a very Indian experience. You may end up hungry, cold and splattered with soot, but the journey will have been an adventure, tinged with uncertainty about the ability of the train to drag itself up the hill. Staying on the narrow Glacier Express St Moritz to Zermatt Full-day journey across three mountain passes in the Alps.
Trains are modern with panoramic windows.
Other similar lines close by. The Brocken Wernigerode to The Brocken, Germany. On the former border between East and West in the Harz Mountains. Steam-hauled to the summit for superb views. Before reunification, it was closed as it was in a militarily-sensitive area.