 "Celebrating 171 years of Indian Railways, but no real-photos available today")
On April 16, the Ministry of Railways put out a photograph on social media. This was captioned “This Day That Year” and had a picture of a train travelling over a bridge. The text read, “Celebrating 171 illustrious years of Indian Railways! On April 16, 1853, the first passenger train ran from Bori Bunder (Bombay) to Thane, marking the beginning of an incredible journey!” You can’t fault Indian Railways (IR) legally. The text didn’t directly say the picture was that of the first train ride. But there is no denying that it implied it, and the media interpreted and reported it in that fashion. IR indulged in a bit of suggestio falsi and suppressio veri.
At 3.35 PM on April 16, 1853, with a 21-gun salute, a train with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests left Bori Bunder for Thane (then Tannah). With three steam locomotives (Sindh, Sultan, and Sahib), that journey took 1 hour and 15 minutes in 1853. Bori Bunder station is no longer used. This was the first commercial passenger service, not the first train. It isn’t quite correct to say this was the first passenger train, as opposed to the commercialisation of service.
The Red Hill Railroad (RHR) is associated with the name Chintadripet. The Red Hill Railroad was built in 1836, two decades before Bori Bunder-Thane. It was a freight railway, but passengers also travelled on it. More importantly, no photographs exist of that 1853 journey. Any purported picture is plain fake.
In addition, any purported photograph or postage stamp should have had three engines, not one. No one seems to know what happened to the locomotives Sahib and Sultan. They just vanished. Sindh was luckier. It was last seen on a plinth at what used to be the Byculla office of GIPR (Great Indian Peninsular Railway). But IR (Indian Railways) decided to celebrate one hundred years in 1953. Sindh was brought to Delhi, and no one knows what happened to him thereafter. Since IR has been somewhat lax about heritage, it might have been sold off as scrap. I mentioned a photograph because in the centennial year in 1953, a postage stamp was issued to celebrate the occasion, and again, IR did that bit of suggestio falsi and suppressio veri with a single locomotive.
If you come across a purported photograph of 1853, a useful check is the tender, the place where coal and water are kept for steam locomotives. They used to be separate units, as was the case with the locomotives Sindh, Sultan, and Sahib.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIn other locomotives, such as the celebrated Fairy Queen, the tender was integrated into the main body. Other than GIPR, the other major railway company was the East India Railway Company (EIRC). EIRC imported two locomotives in 1855. Initially, they were simply numbered 21 and 22. Later, they were called EIR 91 and EIR 92. It was only much later, in 1895, that they came to acquire the respective names of Express and Fairy Queen.
The old locomotive shown on the postage stamp is the Express. Evidently, it was used for ferrying British troops to suppress the 1857 War of Independence. As for the Fairy Queen, it still occasionally runs from Delhi to Rewari. In 1853, the fare from Mumbai to Thane was Rs 2 and 10 annas for first class, Re 1 and 1 anna for second class, and 5 annas and 3 pice for third class. But this was for other passenger trains, not the first train ride in April 1853.
Since all 400 passengers were invited VIPs and guests, including Lady Falkland, the wife of the Governor of Bombay, they probably paid nothing. An apocryphal story tells us that the Governor didn’t think that the railway line was a ’terribly good idea’. Therefore, Lord Falkland wasn’t part of the entourage.
“The railway system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry.” This is something Karl Marx wrote, and most people are familiar with this quote. The piece was titled “The Future Results of British Rule in India." Karl Marx wrote this on July 22nd, 1853, though it was first published on August 8th, 1853.
In other words, Marx must have known about that April 16, 1853, run, and his essay may very well have been a reaction to it. In the same essay, he said, “I know that the English millocracy intend to endow India with railways with the exclusive view of extracting at diminished expenses the cotton and other raw materials for their manufactures. But when you have once introduced machinery into the locomotion of a country, which possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withhold it from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of railways over an immense country without introducing all those industrial processes necessary to meet the immediate and current wants of railway locomotion, and out of which there must grow the application of machinery to those branches of industry not immediately connected with railways.”
It didn’t quite pan out that way, and railways didn’t contribute as much to growth as they did in other countries. One reason was the emphasis on passenger traffic as opposed to freight. But that’s a different story.
The author is the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Council. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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