The word ‘cotton’ has a special significance for Indian Railways. India’s first rail transport – ‘Red Hill Railroad’ – was built by Arthur Cotton in 1836 in Madras to transport granite for construction of a road. The rail was dismantled after the work was over. Though it did not provide continuity to the Railway system that came up in India after two decades, it did prove to be a precursor to the Indian Railways.
Cotton, a crop grown in abundance in India, in 18th and 19th centuries, lent its weight to the growing demand for setting up a Railway system in the country. The Indian sub-continent, at that point of time, had no organized system of marketing. The crops grown in different parts of the country were sold only in local markets, at rates which varied widely from region to region.
Necessity led to invention
In the middle of the 19th century, America, which too grew cotton in plenty, suffered successive crop failures and this made British traders turn their heads towards India. But proper transport system from the field to the market was a challenge.
The East India Company started contemplating a system to connect India’s hinterland with major ports for not only quicker transport of cotton as raw material but also to send back manufactured goods from Great Britain to markets in India. Other than economic reasons, there were military considerations too, which goaded British to support installation of Railway network in India.
Made business sense
The British policy makers were convinced that investment in putting up a Railway system in India would be more rewarding than in any other country. The price of land was low, labour cost was low and there was abundance of wood for tracks and sleepers. In such a scenario, it worked out to be the cheapest line in any country into which Railways had been introduced.
The demand by British traders for a quicker transport network was matched by a similar demand by Indian traders. Some eminent citizens of Madras (now Chennai), in 1830, proposed the setting of a Railway system. In 1843, a proposal was mooted by wealthy businessmen of Bombay (now Mumbai), Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Madras to link the ports of these cities.
It all started in Bombay
In the late 1840s, in Bombay, there was a strong lobby that supported Railway communication and formed a body called the Bombay Great Eastern Railway. John Chapman, a British, after studying the nitty-gritty of the issue presented a comprehensive plan for laying a Railway line of about 21,000 km starting from Bombay.
Chapman raised capital and also formed a committee which was later converted into a joint stock company giving birth to India’s first ever Railway company, the Great India Peninsula Railway (GIPR).
There were naysayers
There were also some who were opposed to Railways and perceived it as a premature and expensive undertaking. Calling it “hazardous” and a “dangerous venture”, they doubted its feasibility citing poverty, extreme climate with torrential rains, violent storms, high mountains, sandy deserts and dense forests.
But commercial and military considerations won in the end. In late 1840s, the East India Company formally invited plans for the Railway project which was approved by the British Parliament in 1849. On 16th April 1853, the country’s first passenger train, run by GIPR, set off on a 34-km journey between Bombay’s Bori Bundar and Thane stations.
It consisted of 14 carriages, hauled by three steam locomotives (Sahib, Sindh and Sultan) and carried 400 passengers. This early era of passenger travel was primarily funded by private companies under a ‘guaranteed system’ created by the British Parliament which ensured that the investing company would receive a certain return on investment.
The policy of ‘guaranteed system’ gave a spurt to development of Railways. Between 1855 and 1860, new Railway companies were established like Eastern India Railway, Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway, and others.
Nationalisation of Railways
In 1900, GIPR was acquired by the state and in 1907 the Government purchased all major lines. The Railway network continued to grow and by 1929, it was transporting 620 million passengers and 90 million tonne of goods annually.
The 1980s was a crucial decade as it saw a complete phase-out of the steam locomotives and they were replaced by diesel or electric engines with around 4500 km track being electrified.
Indian Railways is now the fourth largest national Railway system by size, in the world. It has over 68,000 km of route length, running over 13,000 passenger trains daily.
