Sahib, Sindh and Sultan: Steam Engines of the First Passenger Train

Its 3:35PM on April 16th, 1853 and Sahib, Sindh and Sultan, three steam engines of India’s first passenger train were ready, all spick and span new, between then Bombay now Mumbai, then Victoria Terminus now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to cover 21 miles in 57 minutes to Thane. The train was filled with more than 400 invited dignitaries including the Amelia Cary, Viscountess Falkland, wife of Governor of Mumbai Lucius Cary, 10th Viscount Falkland. Indian railway began its operations 171 years ago and this became a momentous occasion for this country. It started as a private company called The Great Indian Peninsula Railway

Many claim that railways in one the “gifts” that the British left for India. But like other things the beginning of railways in India was for a cause to support the empire. There was a major failure of cotton crop in 1846 in America and England and the Company wanted to exploit fertile lands of India for Jute and Cotton and support the mills of Manchester. This famine helped to bring trains in India early otherwise it would have taken little more time. The reason to start the passenger travel was also very clever as it was very costly to build lines in India, it took 18000 pounds to build a mile of track where it took only 2000 pounds to build the same in England. So whatever profit was made from passenger travel was ploughed back to build more tracks in India to connect the hinterlands to the ports of India.

What Bahadur Shah Zafar promised?

In the height of great revolt of 1857, the deposed last Mughal Emperor had promised the people of of then India that if Badshahi rule was restored in Delhi then he would support to build Indian owned railway tracks for native merchants. Mughal rule never came back and Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled to Burma, current day Myanmar and we lived with the British owned rail until Independence when Indian government took over in 1947 from the many private organization that used to run sections of railway divisions.

Mahatma Gandhi and Railways

Almost everyone knows about the story of Mahatma Gandhi thrown out of the train at a station called Pietermaritzburg Station in South Africa where he spent his night in a waiting station pondering about race and discrimination. This is where probably seeds of Satyagraha were sown in his mind. Gandhi used railways quite a bit when he came to India in his political movement against British, he travelled across India in Third Class meeting common population on India. He made use of trains to support the national struggle.

Railways played a huge role in freedom struggle and helped in movement of all kinds of freedom fighters and revolutionaries through the length and breadth of the country. During the partition the huge migration happened, it was none other than the railways that moved people across borders and saw the whole bloodshed.

During the Great Influenza of 1918, railways are considered as the means for the spread of the disease all across the India. There are stories of railway stations filled with dead people all around. The “chai” experiment was done at the railway stations and trains, Britishers wanted desi folks to pick tea and they started giving out tea free at stations and trains which has remained even true today though no longer it is free

Current Railways

In 2021-22 3.519 billion passengers were carried by Indian Railways and these are ticketed passengers. This number can be much higher if ticketless passenger are included. Today people from all walks of life use Indian Rail and it is one of the most affordable rail service in the world.

Rail plays a role of mostly all people rich or poor in the country today. Indian movies has many stories strewn with the railways, the most recently is the movie called “Lapatta Ladies” that is a satire on the Indian society.

Listen to podcast called Vivechna by Rehan Fazal on BBC in one of its episode that talks about rail and inspired me to write this.