The Konkan Railway is a significant development in the Indian Railway sector linking the West Coast to the main railway network. The project was conceptualised in the year 1866 when a line linking the Arabian Sea to Khopoli was proposed. The line was to pass through Chowk, Panvel Valley with an alternative line from Khopoli via Apta Valley. The idea gained considerable momentum during 1969–1970. It was in 1990 when the project finally received the approval of the government and was completed in 8 years under the leadership of the former director Konkan Railway Corporation Limited Sreedharan and opened for traffic in 1998. The project however was saddled with ecological challenges concerning Mangrove plantation and the livelihoods of 42,000 farmers whose lands were acquired for the project. The paper proposes to trace the development of the Konkan Railways from the pre-independence to the post-liberalisation period and assess the impact on the environment, in the long run, using secondary sources of data such as the Ministry of Railway reports, reports from the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited and books.