Recount #007 : unraveling history ||stage 3||

Hello fellas........

I immensely totally surely bet that you all are having an awesome blossom amazing time.......

Every jiffy has some precious moments...either earn from it or learn from it. If both....its brilliant !!!

So here I am, continuing with last blast from the past......I hope it delights you in :)

By end of the century, India was like a choco lava cake for giant Railways companies. One bite was enough to sink in ! To bring about co-ordination in working and time tables.... Sir Thomas Robertson was appointed as Special commissioner due to whose efforts Railway Board was formed in 1905. Railway mileage reached till 24,750 miles in India.

Regrouping was first put on paper by 1904 but got materialized after world war.

India was geographically divided into three regions :

1. Western Division consisting of : Great Indian Peninsula , Bombay Boroda Central India(BBCI), North Western, Jodhpur, Bikaner together with branch and feeder railways in their areas.

2. Eastern Division consisting of : EIR, Oudh & Rohilkund, Bengal & North Western, Rohilkund & Kumaon, Assam Bengal, Bengal Nagpur(BNR), East Bengal (EBR).

3. Southern Division consisting of : Madras Railway, Southern Marhatta, South Indian, Nizam together with ports and local railways.

1910 Railway Map

Both the World Wars brought lot of strain in railways production. As railways were used to manufacture shells and other military requirements. After Independence, in early 1950s zonal grouping began. Northern railways, eastern railways and North-eastern railways were formed.

In 1980, Railways Act, 1890 was replaced by Railways Act, 1989 which updated all the legal framework for railways in India. Since then new amendments have always been introduced. 

2013 was marked as 160th anniversary since 1st passenger train was initiated.

That is all in the history..

I hope you all liked it. It would be great to know your views.

Will bring more amazing details in my next segmentTill then keep travelling.

Rise and shine.

Recount #006 : unraveling history ||stage:2||

Hola dear readers !!!!

Not wasting ANYmore of the time...... I am bringing the next segment *stage 2* for unraveling the history. I hope reading the previous line is not making any one thinking....history of what ???? for that you have to really look the URL posted up !!!! huh.....;p

Anyways... continuing from where I left :

After the failure of the Red Hill Rail Road line... it was clear to all, that conditions in India were a lot different from Britain. Seeing India's topography, high mountains, stretches of deserts, dense forests with extreme climatic conditions their was no doubt left regarding zero-feasibility for railways construction.

But the railways was constructed ...the first to be built in Asia. The main reason to push the railway project was huge distances among cities and the need for quick transport of cotton and other goods.Another need was handling of the massive population by deploying troops and army by the Britishers.

These two reasons were enough for forming a mutual *thumbs-up* by East Indian Railway Company and Great India Peninsula Railway. These two were the Railway companies established by East India Company, the then rulers of India. These companies buckled up and started up working in their respective area.

I can actually feel the fire of competition that must have been raging in administrates of both the companies. The value for being the first is immense. Obviously, it was "I created the history and you followed" situation. The only crisis was whose statement will it be !

But, on the positive note : it was a healthy competition in which people focused more on their constructive side and not on destructive side.

Ending the curiosity........the first official Indian railway on Indian sub-continent was built by Great India Peninsula Railway. 

On April 16th, 3: 35 pm the first train in India leaves Bombay for Thane. Isn't it wow ! One can actually sense the gravity of this situation. 

"amidst the loud applause of a vast multitude and to the salute of 21 guns." The train consisting of 14 carriages was hauled by three locomotives named Sultan, Sindh and Sahib with 400 VVIPs The formal inauguration ceremony was performed on 16th April 1853, when 14 railway carriages carrying about 400 guests left Bori Bunder at 3.35 PM.

                      

(L)Railway Bridge on Bhore Ghaut Incline.Photographic print Date: 1855 (R)  Bhore Incline, near Bombay

Well, the railway route in proceeding years were added on and yeah! the great Indian railways standing now reached its adolescence !

East Indian Railway Company accomplished their task an year ahead. Their beauty, the first passenger train steamed out of Howrah station destined for Hoogly, a distance of 24 miles, on 15th 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. 

From this time, the company ran regular services, morning and evening, between Howrah and Hoogli with stops at Bally, Srerampore and Chandannagar.

Then their was no reaching back. Like a ravishing raging strong beheaded adult , Indian
Railways carried on........

With the success of these companies, other companies started investing in large numbers. The profits were immense. Like Boom !!!! the lands were getting carved in the name of transportation.

Well....we are all aware of ...what happens.....when someone flying high.....their comes a time.....its shown route to the ground......Same thing happened here also....The chaos by the companies was necessary to be tackled.

So what happened ?????

We will see in the next segment !!!!!

Till then keep reading, keep travelling and keep enjoying

Rise and Shine

Recount #005 : unraveling history ||stage:1||

Hello people.

I am back.....not with a bang but with history......yessss  HISTORY...... I know it may sound boring to some and few might not read a word more. The fact is, going through history is not  boring but the way it is presented is. For example watching gladiator is more impact full to the same amount of population than reading the same in 2000.pages
Though, I respect everybody's choices and personnel preferences. :) :) :)

Although, I belong to a hardcore science community but I enjoy digging up history in the books. According to me, its like a past mystery unfolding again !

Anyways, continuing with where I left, I bring *HISTORY* about the Indian Railways. The How's, the what's and the When's; in short the initial essentials of the present network of majestic Indian Railways.

I hope you all enjoy going through the post !!!!

The Beginning

•  Time I am about to talk about is the period when India was fully colonized under British empire. To overcome the issues of traveling, communication and transport of goods like cotton, the project of building rails was put up.

The seed or the idea was initiated first on paper by Sir Rowland Macdonalds Stephensons who was a 19th century railway engineer and instrumental in building the East India Railway in the then British India. His paper titled 'Report upon the Practicability and Advantages of the Introduction of Railways into British India', which has been digitized by Google from University of Michigan. I wonder, such a long title would be accepted and appreciated for any report now a days !
But, isn't it shouting elegance and impact-fullness. Imagine Robert Downey Jr. speaking as Sherlock Holmes.
;p

An interesting plot upholding the curiosity quotient is, why exactly the report was made !  What was the need to have an official printed compiled points when it could have been materialized on the table.

Its like publishing the report before doing the Ph D.

   
• The answer takes us to flipping the pages a decade backward in the year 1935 when an experimental

line was laid near Chintadripet, a city near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Yeah, the Ph. D was done. ;p
It was an initiation by Captain Cotton to let people know how building railways as a mode of easy conveyance can just double the annual savings. The Government gave the nod and trials were done. But, this experiment gradually lost the interest and declined within a span of 10 years.

The exact reasons are not known or to be precise not declared ! But a trivial was put up in 1845 The Foreign Quarterly Review May Edition stating - the Red Hill Rail Road perished because of being dependent on a canal near Punalur which occasionally dried there by hindering the travelling causing delay. It looks as an obvious reason but who knows their might be some other speculations. 

**History/Mystery** 

This bridge known as the *Thirteen Arch Bridge* still stands and with the development and new constructions stand sturdy and in use.   :)                                                                                        ==>>

Now we know , how the idea was made, tried, experimented and declined too. So, how did the idea got re-vitalized ? What made it to gain so much momentum that their was no looking back ?

That we will see in the next blog unraveling history ||stage: 2|| which will be posted up soon.  

Till then keep travelling.... keep reading .... keep enjoying.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog..... Do comment and share. Feel free to add upon any information !

Rise and Shine