East Indian Railway Company
Eastern India | |
Services | Rail transport |
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The East Indian Railway Company, operating as the East Indian Railway (
1845–1849
The first board of directors formed in 1845 comprised thirteen members and Rowland Macdonald Stephenson became the first managing director of the company.
1850–1851
On 7 May 1850, the East Indian Railway Company's managing director Macdonald Stephenson,
1851–1853
On 29 January 1851 the East Indian Railway Company took possession of its first land. Turnbull and other British engineers began detailed surveys of the line. They chose the critical crossing point on the 5,000-foot-wide (1,500 m)
Tenders for 11 contracts arrived on 31 October 1851. In December Turnbull continued his survey: he took levels and defined the line from
Infrastructure
All permanent way and rolling stock was transported from Britain in sailing ships to Calcutta via the Cape of Good Hope (the Suez Canal did not then exist). In April 1854, it was estimated that over 100,000 tons of rails, 27,000 tons of chairs, and some 8000 tons of keys, fish-plates, pins, nuts and bolts were needed.[5]
Rolling stock
By 1859, there were 77 engines, 228 coaches and 848 freight wagons.[6] By the end of 1877 the company owned 507 steam locomotives, 982 coaches and 6,701 goods wagons.[7] In 1900 the wagon stock was under 14,000 wagons, in 1905 it was over 17,000 wagons.[8]
In 1907 five
Sleepers
Although immense quantities of
Bridges
The initial plans were for the many bridges over the Ganges tributaries to be built of bricks: hundreds of millions were needed. Brick-making skills were very limited and often the available clay was found to be unsuitable. Transport by river of suitable clay was difficult. Brick availability became a major problem, so the decision was made to use vast quantities of ironwork – imported from England as India had no iron works at that time. Much ironwork was stolen during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[10]
Construction work of Old Yamuna Bridge in Delhi started in 1863[11] which was popularly known as lohe ka pool(bridge made by iron)[12] and completed in 1866. It is a 12 spanned bridge. The construction cost of the bridge was Rs 16,16,335/-[11] Initially it was made as a single railway track but was upgraded to double track in 1913[13]
1854–1863
Line openings
The 541 miles (871 kilometres) of line from Howrah to Benares were opened to:
- Hooghly(37 km or 23 miles) for passenger traffic on 15 August 1854. More than 3000 applications were received from people wanting to ride in the first train in eastern India. The first train ran to full capacity. The train left Howrah station at 8:30 a.m. and reached Hooghly in 91 minutes. It had three first-class and two second-class coaches. It also had three trucks for third-class passengers and a brakevan for the guard. All of these were built in India, because the ship ferrying the original coaches from England had unfortunately met with natural disaster on the high seas and consequently sank. The locomotive however was imported, though not without its own difficulties. The ship bringing the locomotive had initially, due to an error, sailed to Australia, and the engine had to be shipped back to India.
During the first 16 weeks, the company was delighted to carry 109,634 passengers: 83,118 third class, 21,005 second class, and 5511 first class. The gross earnings, including the receipts of a few tons of merchandise were £6793.[14]
- Pundooah on 1 September 1854.[4]
- Burdwanin February 1855.
- Raniganj with its coalfields on 3 February 1855.[4] In 1855, 617,281 passengers were carried and contracts made to carry 100,000 tons of coal from the Raniganj colliery to Howrah.
- Adjai in October 1858.
- 1,388,714 passengers were carried in 1859.
- Bhagalpur in 1861.
- The loop from Khana Junction to Kiul via Jamalpur, including the Mughal Sarai via the present line beyond Kiul. The sections from Luckee Sarai to Danapore and Danapore to Mughal Sarai were completed in the meantime.[16]
- Sonbridge and judged it complete on 4 November 1862.
- Across the River Ganges from Benares in December 1862.[17]
Including branch lines this totalled 601 miles (967 kilometres).
Bridges, tunnel and cholera
The most significant bridge was the
Celebrations on completion
On 5 February 1863, a special train from
The Chief Engineer responsible for all this construction from 1851 to 1862 was
Criticisms
Some historians like Irfan Habib argue that because the contracts signed between East India Company and EIR in 1849 guaranteed 5% return on all capital invested, initially there was no inducement for economy or for employing Indians instead of high-paid Europeans (but initially, there were only experienced British railway civil engineers and no Indian ones). EIR was stated in 1867 to have spent as much as Rs 300,000 on each mile of railway, the construction described by a former Finance Member in India as the most extravagant works ever undertaken.[21]
Later 19th-century developments
The line from
20th-century developments
On 1 January 1925 the British Indian Government took over the management of the East Indian Railway.
On 14 April 1952,
Classification
It was labeled as a Class I railway according to
See also
External links
References
- ^ "Bangladepia". Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2008.
- ^ Cambridge University, England
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 2.
- ^ a b c Rao 1988, p. 18.
- ^ Mukherjee 1995, pp. 136–137.
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 27.
- ^ Archiv für Post und Telegraphie, Band 7 (in German). Reichsdruckerei, Berlin. 1879. pp. 62–63.
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 181.
- ^ "EIR Steam Railway Motor Coach" (in German). Archived from the original on 26 April 2022. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
- ^ Mukherjee 1995, pp. 113–140.
- ^ a b "Old Yamuna Bridge, 1863-66". Archived from the original on 21 June 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ "A bridge of stories". The Hindu. 19 June 2016. Archived from the original on 1 March 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ "/136-year-old-bridge-on-the-yamuna-river-is-still-going-strong". 25 August 2003. Archived from the original on 21 June 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ Rao 1988, pp. 18–19.
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 28.
- ^ a b c Rao 1988, p. 19.
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 34.
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 25.
- ^ George Turnbull, C.E. 437-page memoirs published privately 1893, scanned copy held in the British Library, London on compact disk since 2007
- ^ Huddleston 1906, p. 35.
- ^ Habib 2006, pp. 36–37.
- ^ Rao 1988, p. 35.
- ^ Rao 1988, pp. 42–43.
- ^ "Indian Railway Classification". Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
- ^ World Survey of Foreign Railways. Transportation Division, Bureau of foreign and domestic commerce, Washington D.C. 1936. pp. 210–219. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
Notes
- Habib, Irfan (2006). A Peoples History of India Vol 28. Indian Economy 1858–1914. Aligarh: Tulika.
- Huddleston, George (1906). History of the East Indian Railway. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Company.
- Mukherjee, Hena (1995). The Early History of the East Indian Railway 1845–1879. Calcutta: Firma KLM. ISBN 81-7102-003-8.
- Rao, M.A. (1988). Indian Railways. New Delhi: National Book Trust.