Central Railway’s most prestigious train, the Deccan Queen, completes 96 years on Monday, June 1. Having braved monsoons, carried generations, and outlived empires, the Queen shows no signs of abdicating her throne. The train will be decorated and celebrated by passengers with cake-cutting, evoking nostalgia on reels and shorts on Monday as it enters its 97th year.

“The train is an emotion, and there is a particular kind of romance that attaches itself to it. We will be celebrating 97 years of its existence and cutting a cake when the train departs from Pune on Monday morning,” Harsha Shah, president of the Railway Pravasi Group, told Mid-day.