The first railway on Indian sub-continent ran over a
stretch of 21 miles from Bombay to Thane on 16 April 1853. The idea
of a railway to connect Bombay with Thane, Kalyan and with the Thai
and Bhore Ghats inclines first occurred to George Clark, the Chief
Engineer of the Bombay Government, during a visit to Bhandup in 1843.
During the formal inauguration ceremony, 14 railway carriages
carrying about 400 guests left Bori Bunder at 3.30 pm "amidst
the loud applause of a vast multitude and to the salute of 21 guns".
The first passenger train steamed out of Howrah
station destined for Hooghly, a distance of 24 miles, on 15 August
1854. Thus the first section of the East Indian Railway was opened to
public traffic, inaugurating the beginning of railway transport on
the Eastern side of the sub-continent. In South, the first line was
opened on 1 July 1856 by the Madras Railway Company. It ran between
Veyasarpandy and Walajah Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles. In the
North, a length of 119 miles of line was laid from Allahabad to
Kanpur on 3 March 1859.
The first section from Hathras Road to Mathura
Cantonment was opened to traffic on 19 October 1875. These small
beginnings in due course developed into a network of railway lines
all over the country. By 1880, the Indian Railway system had a route
mileage of about 9000 miles. When India became independent in 1947,
there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951, the systems were
nationalized as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the
world. Thus Indian Railways (IR) was torn.
No comments:
Post a Comment