Once in the Lifetime of a Nation

 

Indian Railways have completed 172 years of the first run of a train in the country. It is a matter of pride for Railwaymen like me and of celebration by the countrymen. Indian Railways, over the years, by their vast and expanding network, have connected far corners of the country and brought a sense of nationhood and oneness to Indians. 

 

Apart from connecting far-flung geographical areas the Railways in India also brought about a social harmony, or social tolerance, that was previously unthinkable. Indians of all castes and social status, even the so-called upper caste and the untouchables, were forced to travel sitting on the same bench in the rail coach because the railway builders did not provide any classes of travel except those dictated by the paying capacity of passengers.

 

Railways in India - A Great Social Equaliser

 

If one could afford only a third class travel no matter how high a caste one belonged to, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, for hours together, with a person of unknown caste and status was unavoidable. On the other hand, if a so-called lower caste person could afford a first-class travel, he automatically acquired a higher status - no village panchayat or khap could deny him that in a train compartment. Thus, Railways in India brought about social equality in no less significant measure than any social-reform movement.

 

Did the British Alone Build the Railways?

 

It is often claimed that the British built the Railways in India to help them colonise the subcontinent and for exploiting resources. While it may be true, the storytellers ignore that many Princely States built their own railways to serve their subjects. That they built these Railways, running into hundreds of miles, with limited resources, little foreign inputs, and with the benign purpose of easing the lives of their people is no less creditworthy than what the British did. Limited resources forced them to work with metre gauge or narrow gauge. Hyderabad State, a wealthier entity, however, built a broad-gauge railway for compatibility with the British-built gauge. Some of them are listed below.

 

Year	Name of State / Railway	Gauge	Approx. Length
1862	Gaekwar’s Baroda State Railway	Narrow gauge (2 ft 6 in)	~8 miles (initial); later expanded to 200+ km
1870s	Hyderabad State Railway	Broad gauge (5 ft 6 in)	~100 km (initial); expanded significantly
1878	Bhavnagar State Railway	Metre gauge (1,000 mm)	~200+ km
1881	Gondal State Railway	Metre gauge (1,000 mm)	~150+ km
1882	Jodhpur–Bikaner Railway	Metre gauge (1,000 mm)	1300+ km (by 1906)
1886	Morvi Railway	Narrow and  Metre gauge	~100 km
1895	Gwalior Light Railway	Narrow gauge (2 ft)	~199 km
1900	Parlakimedi Light Railway	Narrow gauge (2 ft 6 in)	~100+ km (with expansions)
1902	Cochin State Railway	Broad gauge (5 ft 6 in)	~30 km (Shoranur–Cochin)
1903	Kalka–Shimla Railway	Narrow gauge (2 ft 6 in)	96 km
1904–07	Neral–Matheran Railway	Narrow gauge (2 ft)	21 km
1905	Cutch State Railway	Metre gauge (1,000 mm)	~70 km (initial)
1911–14	Arrah–Sasaram Light Railway	Narrow gauge (2 ft 6 in)	102 km

 

Railway Line - A Permanent Fixture

 

Trunk routes were built largely by the British. What we need to appreciate is that a Railway Line is built but once in the lifetime of a nation. Once laid a rail route is as permanent as the land it rests upon. As can be seen in the picture above the rail routes built as early as in 1870 remain exactly the same today, a century and a half later. Take a look at Delhi-Calcutta, Bombay-Allahabad, and Bombay-Madras lines. There is no reason to believe that these routes will ever be shifted even an inch from where they are embedded. More lines may be built but the original roads of steel are permanent. No wonder they are called Permanent Way. 

 

Where the Modern Planners Failed

 

It is for this reason planners have to be humble and farsighted, both. What they do today will decide what path generations will take in the future, literally, a rail path. However, they failed in recent times, whenever opportunities arose to convert MG and NG lines to BG. They simply replaced the narrower gauges with the BG with all the curves and gradients that existed unchanged. This froze the speeds on such converted BG routes to measly 40-60 kmph at multiple locations. Rather than thinking big and acquiring necessary land to straighten the curves and ease the gradients, they found it expedient to follow the beaten path and condemned those routes to low and medium speeds for ever. Such routes will never see even 130kmph let alone higher speeds. Some such routes that I know of are Nagpur-Chhindwara-Jabalpur and Gondia-Balaghat-Nainpur.

 

I hope new line-builders take a more farsighted view.

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