The Kangra Valley Railway is a narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in) mountain railway that runs 164km from Pathankot, at the base of the hills, through the Kangra valley to Jogindernagar. Nagrota Surian is one of the stations on the line. The railway passes through some of the most visually striking terrain in Himachal Pradesh — the Shivalik foothills give way to the mid-Himalayan ranges, and the track crosses numerous river gorges and cuts through dense forest on a line that has changed little since its construction.
The journey between Pathankot and Kangra (about 4 hours for the roughly 80km section) is the most scenic part of the route. The diesel locomotives pull a small rake of carriages through a landscape of terraced fields, river gorges, and orchards. The line is slow and the trains often late, but that is part of the experience. Several of the smaller stations along the route are unchanged from the British period. Booking from Pathankot to Nagrota Surian or onward to Kangra is straightforward at the station.