Addressing the ecological impacts of transport corridors while planning any transport network is paramount for a better understanding ecological processes, biodiversity distribution, and ecosystem resilience. Here, we evaluated the impacts of railway edges on edaphic parameters, plant diversity, and composition in the northwestern Himalayas as a function of perpendicular distance from the railway track. In 2014 and 2017, we sampled vegetation plots across 31 sites distributed along 119 km of the Kashmir railway to test the effect of railway tracks on edaphic and vegetative parameters in short-term periods. T-shaped plots were laid comprising four sub-plots, one parallel to the track and the other three perpendiculars to it. We adopted the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) road survey methodology for data collection. We found (i) a tendency to increase in all soil parameters (electrical conductivity, salinity, organic carbon, available nitrogen, and available phosphorus), except pH, as the distance from the railway track increased; (ii) significant railway edge effects on the importance value index of plant growth forms, life span, nativity and taxonomic group across space (distance of plots from track) and time (2014 to 2017); and (iii) a significant spatiotemporal railway edge effects on plant species composition. Our results are pioneering in showing that railway tracks crossing through different ecosystems alter the edaphic conditions, resulting in direct and indirect edge effects on key abiotic and biotic factors, which in turn impact the vegetation of the surrounding natural habitats on both sides of the railway track, which was assessed as a function of the perpendicular distance of plots from the track. Our study contributes toward a better understanding of the role of anthropogenic edges like railways on abiotic factors and vegetation communities.