East Indian Railway: 1906 History of the EIR - Chapter IV
Note: This is a sub-section of the East Indian Railway
The History of the East Indian Railway by George Huddleston. Published 1906 by Tracker, Spins and Co
CHAPTER IV. THE ALIGNMENT OF THE EAST INDIAN RAILWAY AND OTHER MATTERS.
THE actual route the East Indian Railway should follow on its course from Calcutta to Delhi, naturally formed a subject for much controversy. The general idea was to get to Delhi through Mirzapore and the original survey was made with the intention of taking the line very much along the course of the route now being constructed as the Grand Chord; it was in fact at first proposed to run the lower section of the railroad in as direct a line as possible to Benares.
Had this idea been adopted, the selection would not have been without distinct advantages. It would, in the first place, have given a far shorter route to the North-West Provinces than that afforded by the Loop line; secondly it would have led to the discovery of the Jherriah Coalfield forty years earlier than it was actually opened up; and thirdly, it would have altered the whole complexion of the Indian Mutiny, for without any great pressure on the resources of the engineers the shorter route could easily have been completed as far as Rajghit, on the banks of the river Ganges opposite Benares, before the summer of 1857. If this much had been accomplished, Benares, instead of Calcutta, would have formed our military base, the massacre of Cawnpore would have been unheard of and Lucknow would never have been besieged. Our troops would, in short, have only had to deal with Delhi, and the East Indian Railway would have been the means of saving at least half the bloodshed, and of terminating the struggle in quarter the time actually taken. When the Mutiny broke out the rail ended at Raneegunge, that is to say, within 121 miles of Calcutta, and when time meant everything and each day was precious, it took troops the best part of three weeks to march from the rail head to Benares, while the conveyance of stores and munitions of war took still longer.
At least two years were lost in discussion, but at last the decision was come to, to take the main line more or less along the course of the Ganges, the chief object being "to tap the river at Rajmahal." When, however, the railway got as far as Rajmahal, there was no river to tap, as in the meantime the Ganges had changed its course and the importance of Rajmahal had gone. But apart from this, the idea of making the main line via the loop and constructing a branch line to the Raneegunge coal field, committed the railway to an impossible course for its upcountry coal traffic. It meant that all coal for Upper India had first to be conveyed fifty miles in a downward direction, and then had to be sent upwards by the roundabout loop line. To illustrate in some measure what this amounted to when put into mileage, it is only necessary to say that the opening of the present Chord line effected a saving of 146 miles between Raneegunge and Benares, while the opening of the Grand Chord line will mean the saving of another 50 miles between the same points.
On the other hand there is much to be said in favour of the decision to run the original main line along the fertile valley of the Ganges. Setting aside the fact that, before the days of railroads, the river was the chief means of transport and the main route of commerce, all the more important towns and trading centres such as Bhagulpur, Monghyr and Patna lay along its banks, and seeing that the first object of the railway, from a commercial point of view, was to secure traffic, it was most desirable that these towns should be served. They were the marts for the disposal of the produce of the adjoining districts, including the trans-Ganges districts which were then, of course, without railroads of any kind. It was more necessary to open out this part of the country than to run a railway through a coalfield, which, seeing that there was then but a small market for the disposal of coal, was unlikely to yield a traffic for many years; or to traverse an unprofitable route, at a time when the first need was to draw to the railway a traffic that existed and only needed to be secured and developed. Had the railway in the first instance been constructed through the hills of Hazaribagh, traversing a wild and thinly populated country, while the fertile and thickly peopled districts of the Gangetic plain were left untouched, there is little doubt that the financial success of the undertaking would have remained for a long period unassured. It is true that if, in the first instance, the main line of rail had followed the direct route, a branch line might have been constructed from, say, Gya to Patna, and that the East Indian Railway Company's Collieries at Giridih might have been reached in a reverse direction, from the vicinity of Parasnath, still the great districts bordering the best part of the Ganges would have been left untouched, and the whole of the traffic they contribute to the rail would have been lost.
On the whole therefore, the decision to run the original main line via the loop was a wise one, notwithstanding the fact that this route involved the crossing of all the waterways which drained into the Ganges, and so necessitated an enormous amount of bridging; notwithstanding also that it was the more expensive route to construct. It may also be said that had this route not been followed by the East Indian Railway at the outset, another company would certainly have stepped in; the Great Western of Bengal Railway was in fact formed with this very object.
An alternative which does not appear to have been discussed, but has occurred to the writer, would have been to continue the loop line as far as Moghalsarai and to construct the main line by the route which the Grand Chord will follow. This would have saved the construction of the present Chord between Sitarampur and Luckieserai, a section of the line which is not at all profitable, except for the Giridih branch, which could have been constructed in the reverse direction.
The loop line had not been opened long when the necessity for the Chord or present main line was established, and its construction decided upon; it would have been a fatal error if, instead of constructing the Chord line, the single line along the loop had, as some proposed, been doubled. It was enough that, at a time when railroads in India were mere experiments, the embankments and bridges of the loop were constructed to carry a double line, though to this day a single line is ample for its traffic requirements.
In the meantime other questions as to alignment arose, the more important being that in relation to the route to be followed between Agra and Delhi. It was at first decided to cross the Jumna at Agra and to run the line along the right bank of that river to Delhi; this was indeed the more direct route and work was actually started on it, part of the embankment being in evidence to this day. Before, however, any rails were laid, a discussion arose and as a consequence a change was introduced; the Government decided that the better course was to construct a branch line to Agra, in the same way that a branch line had been constructed to the river Ganges opposite Benares, and that the main line should be taken along the Ganges Doab, that is to say, between the Ganges and Jumna rivers, crossing the latter at Delhi instead of at Agra. Here again the great advantage was that more important towns would be served, and a still more fertile country traversed, than by following the shorter and more direct route along the right bank of the Jumna. These being the facts it seems particularly unjust that years afterwards, overlooking the claims of the East Indian, the construction of the direct line between Agra and Delhi should have been given by Government to a competing railway; yet this is what has been done and a Western India line now owns the route originally proposed by the East Indian Railway, and competes for its traffic.
Having reached Delhi the primary object of the East Indian Railway was accomplished. It is unnecessary to refer again to the controversy as to the entry into Delhi and the proposal that the East Indian Railway should be continued to Lahore, we know how these questions were settled; it is enough to say that, at the time, the Directors were satisfied with what had been accomplished, and that until after the appointment of General Sir Richard Strachey as Chairman of the Board, nothing more in the way of extension or construction was undertaken, although, as indicated elsewhere, the claim of the East Indian Railway to construct the Grand Chord line was, from time to time, strongly pressed on the Government. The story of the Grand Chord line is dealt with in another chapter; it would have been hard indeed had the making of this route been also entrusted to another system.
Time passed, and the construction of other railways proceeded apace. The Government of India came to the conclusion that in order to open up those parts of the country, off the main routes, where traffic was not likely to be heavy, certain railways should be constructed on the metre gauge, instead of on the broad gauge which had been accepted as the standard when railway construction began. In this way the Rajputana Railway came into existence and has ever since been saddled with the transhipment difficulty, at every point at which it joins a broad gauge line; a severe-handicap in many ways, but particularly so where competaion exists. There are few who doubt nowt at metre gauge lines should only be constructed as feeders to broad gauge railways, but so far as the writer knows, there is no definite policy in the matter.
In their anxiety to make railways cheaply, the Government also sanctioned a metre gauge railway between Muttra and Hathras, which was afterwards extended to Agra on the one side and to Cawnpore on the other. This line was made within the sphere of influence of the East Indian and at once started to compete for its traffic. How it was that the East Indian Railway failed to protest against the scheme is not clear, but it is evident that this line should have been constructed on the broad gauge, as part of the East Indian system which it crosses.
In 1889 a Company was formed to connect the East Indian Railway with the summer head-quarters of the Government of India in Simla. This line, starting from Delhi and terminating at Kalka at the foot of the Simla hills, is known as the Delhi-Umballa-Kalka Railway, and is worked by the East Indian as part of its system. Since then a Railway on a 2' 6" gauge has been constructed between Kalka and Simla which is managed as a separate concern, but has not so far proved a financial success; the cost of its construction seems to have been a great deal heavier than at first anticipated, while its traffic is inconsiderable.
The South Behar Railway which runs from Luckieserai Junction to Gya is another line constructed by a company but worked by the East Indian, and in the same way the East Indian works the Tarkessur Railway, a short branch from Sheoraphuli to Tarkessur. The Patna-Gya line originally constructed by the State and worked as a State line, and the branch from Nalhati to Azimgunge, which had also become a State Railway before it was handed over to the East Indian and its gauge altered, are now incorporated with the East Indian, and there is little doubt that the South Behar should be treated in the same way.
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