IT IS a hot, dusty morning at Agra train station. We push through the chaos with our backpacks, past hawkers polishing shoes, cutting hair – even cleaning ears with tapers – and board the rumbling sleeper to Mumbai.

Our seats are already folded into beds and so, declining an offer to share the curry our neighbours are scooping into their mouths with chapatis, we lay down to watch the activity on the platforms.

It is sensory overload. The smell of spice and tobacco wafts through the train, dirty children turn somersaults and bang tambourines as they beg for rupees and chai wallers pass hot, sweet tea through the windows.

As we pull away from the station for what will be a 30-hour journey to Mumbai, my friends and I are already fascinated and bewildered.

Every day, millions experience these sights, sounds and smells of the Indian Railways and between April 4 and September 7 you can too, at the National Railway Museum’s new India On The Move exhibition.

Sponsored by National Express, the exhibition combines photographs, videos and narration by documentary maker Gerry Troyna, pictured right, who filmed Bombay Railways and Monsoon Railways for the BBC.

The exhibition delves into the lives of those who depend on the Indian railway network, introduces us to the workers it provides with a living, the people it takes to work and the hawkers and street children who have forged lives around it.

We also learn about the challenges created by Mumbai’s urban congestion and the torrential monsoon rain.

Joe Savage, display content manager at the NRM, says it brings to life the essence of the Indian railways.

“The railway in India is completely integrated in people’s lives,” says Joe. “You see the hawkers on the station, people going to work, living alongside the lines. People actually depend on the railways in India.

“The exhibition shows this by going from being a big, big story into much more personal stories about individuals.”

Gerry’s portraits speak for themselves.

There is Tapas Bagchi, a traffic inspector from Kharagpur.

“He’s a problem solver and his big job is coping with some of the chaos brought by the monsoon season which is absolutely devastating, but necessary at the same time,” says Joe.

Then there is Mumtaz, the first female diesel driver on the Indian Railways.

“She grew up in a railway colony and wanted to be a driver but her father was unsure so asked his friends and family for advice and they all said a job on the railway would be a secure, very good job.”

There are men carrying lanterns to check the tracks at night, hawkers selling from the platforms, children sweeping the floor – each of them with a story.

“The railways are vital in India,” says Joe. “It’s a huge employer, but it’s also a vast trading floor for millions of hawkers who work on the lines and platforms and the station kids.”

The “station kids” are the children who hop on and off at the stations, begging for rupees, shampoo and chocolate.

Born with nothing, they gravitate towards the railways for a sense of belonging.

Charities do their best to look after them, but many are beaten, abused or slip into solvent abuse.

I will never forget the children on the Indian railways. From the begging toddlers turning somersaults in the aisles, to the ragged children walking up and down with their hands out to a boy who crawled on the floor with a sweeping brush; topless, dirty and bruised.

These stories are too common in India, says Joe. Gerry interviewed a man called Balu Dhokare, who started as a railway child, but became an entrepreneur, selling juice at the station and driving ambulances.

He now has four life insurance policies and is providing handsomely for his family. Success stories like his are rare, says Joe.

“Some people thrive, but most just survive. Some die. Life on the line is very unforgiving.”

Unforgiving it may be, but for the passenger, train journeys in India are also colourful, evocative and unforgettable.

For me, it meant hours of watching women in vibrant saris carry crops on their heads in the fields; of workmen piling on to our beds during rush hour, oblivious to our discomfort; of abysmal toilets, people being sick in the aisles, children getting on and off to beg, my travel pillow – my only bit for comfort – blowing out of the window and on to the tracks, the smell of curry in the stations, the friendliness of strangers offering to share their food and the relief of drinking hot, sweet chai first thing in the morning.

It was a journey I would never forget. For the Indian railways are amazing.

“They acknowledge they are dirty and uncomfortable sometimes but the point is that they are reliable, inexpensive and absolutely essential,” adds Joe. “Despite the overcrowding and heat of it there is that feeling of passion for the trains.”

•India on the Move, the NRM, Leeman Road, York. April 4 – September 7. •There will also be an India Festival until April 17, celebrating Indian culture with crafts music and dance.