Indian Railways at the Crossroads

The development of IR had its roots in the 1800s, when India was a British colony³. The British East India Company and later, the British colonial governments were credited with starting a railway system in India. The British found it difficult to traverse great distances between different places in India. They felt the need to connect those places with trains to speed up the journey as well as to make it more comfortable than travel by road in the great heat. They also sought a more efficient means to transfer raw materials like cotton and wheat from the hinterlands of the country to the ports located in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, from where they would be transported to factories in England.

Work began on the development of railway systems in India in the early 1850s. Initially, trains were used to transport material between different places. The first commercial passenger train in India ran between Bombay and Thane (places in western India) on April 16, 1853. The distance of 34 kilometers⁴ was covered in about 75 minutes. Indians were initially apprehensive of accepting railways as a means of travel, but soon overcame that fear and railways gained popularity. Soon, railway lines began to be laid in other parts of the country, mostly by private British companies, and the major regions in India were connected by rail. To promote the construction of railway lines in India, the British Parliament introduced the guarantee system.