East Indian Railway: 1906 History of the EIR - Chapter XXVII
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 XXVII. THE JAMALPUR WORKSHOPS.
IT has often been asked why it was that Jamalpur was selected as the site for the Company's Locomotive Works. Jamalpur is off the main line, is distant from the Bengal coal-fields, whence not only its fuel but its pig iron has to be transported, and beyond this it has no natural water-supply.
To have selected such a place as the Head-Quarters of Locomotive Engineering works was obviously a blunder; as great a blunder perhaps as the construction of the tunnel nearby, a piece of work that was altogether unnecessary and stands to this day a monument of the wasteful expenditure of the time. The chief reason for the choice seems to have been that Jamalpur was adjacent to the town of Monghyr, which had been known for years as the "Birmingham of the East," and it was conceived that a plentiful supply of skilled mechanics could always be drawn from that place. The inhabitants of Monghyr had for centuries been mechanics by trade, they were of a caste skilled in the manufacture of ironware, notably of guns, pistols, spears and other weapons, and were clearly the class of people who would readily take to mechanical engineering work.
Beyond this it must not be forgotten that, at the time the selection was made, Jamalpur was on, what was then intended to be, the main line of the railway.
Jamalpur was at first only an engine changing station, though light repairs were done in the running shed there. The actual head-quarters of the Locomotive Department were at Howrah, but this place, being near Calcutta, not only possessed great drawbacks but was too confined to admit of extensions. There was in fact no room in Howrah for the workshops of the Locomotive Department, as well as for the Company's Carriage and Wagon Building works, and after long and mature consideration it was decided to remove the former to Jamalpur. I am indebted to Mr. John Strachan, late Locomotive Superintendent of the Company, for the following account of the cause of the removal:—
"It was not till the early sixties that the late Mr. D. W. Campbell decided to remove the workshops to Jamalpur, and this was owing to the drivers and fitters giving trouble. They were all covenanted men from home who had left their families there, and as hotels and billiard rooms were their only amusement, it was no uncommon thing for men to leave the shops during working hours and adjourn to a hotel, then opposite the railway station, kept by a very civil old ship steward, named Bobby Deans, who could always give them something to eat, as well as something to drink and a game of billiards."
"There were also several other places of amusement in Howrah and Calcutta to which men could go, and among these was a place known as Wilson's Coffee Room"
"One day Mr. Campbell, returning from the weekly Meeting in the Agent's Office, happened to call at Wilson's Coffee Room for tiffin, and here he found three of his principal workshop foremen and two engine drivers enjoying themselves in rather a boisterous manner. They asked him to join them in having a peg. What he said in reply has never been recorded, but the men very quickly retired, and after that Mr. Campbell never rested until he had the workshops and Locomotive Offices removed from Howrah to Jamalpur."
It is no part of this history to trace the gradual growth of Jamalpur, from a small engine-changing station, to what is now known as the "Crewe of India," but the following account, kindly furnished me by Mr. P. A. M. Nash, of the Locomotive Department, is of undoubted interest, containing as it does a very clear description of Jamalpur and the Company's Works there at the present time.
"The supervising staff of the workshops consists of 26 Foremen and Assistant Foremen and about 180 European and East Indian mechanics; of the former a large proportion have been recruited from England direct. Practically the whole of this staff is housed in quarters owned by the Company, and live within easy distance of the workshops. Other buildings consist of a Church, Roman Catholic Chapel, Mechanics' Institute, Swimming Bath, Hospital, including a separate building for infectious diseases, and a School for the children of European and East Indian employees. There is also a Boarding house in which 40 European and East Indian apprentices are lodged and cared for under the charge of a resident master and matron. In addition to this 21 live elsewhere in the station. It may perhaps not be out of place, while on this subject, to point out the importance of this system of training indentured apprentices. The recruitment of the subordinate supervising grade has hitherto been chiefly done by the introduction of men from England, but it is hoped that in the future suitable candidates will have been trained up in the workshops to take these appointments, and the expense of importing men will be saved, as well as the risk of the climate not suiting the men thus brought out to India for the first time. At the same time it must be remembered that an excellent field of employment is thus afforded for the sons of the Company's servants.
Jamalpur is the head-quarters of the East Indian Railway Volunteer Rifles, at the present time 2,300 strong, and the Armoury and Head-quarters staff are in Jamalpur.
The recreation of the men is not forgotten, and there is a flourishing Gymkhana in connection with the Mechanics' Institute, providing cricket, football, tennis, etc.
The workshops at the present time cover an area of about 100 acres, of which about 20 are roofed over, the whole being fenced in with a high iron fence. Fifteen years ago they occupied barely half of this space. At that time 3,122 men were employed compared with 9,428 this year (1906), the wages in 1890 amounted to Rs. 4,15,093 compared with Rs. 11,00,000 in 1905. The value of the outturn is about Rs. 54,00,000 a year or £360,000 compared with £58,332 in 1890. The above serves to give some idea of the vast strides that have been made in the last few years, and the growth of the Locomotive Department of the railway may also be gauged by the fact that in 1863 the total engine stock was 247, and at the present time is 952.
The shops are now or will be very shortly in a position to build locomotives to meet all the requirements of the line. The work of building locomotives has been actually going on for some years, but owing to the amount of repairs to existing stock that is necessary, new-engine building has had to be kept back. Almost all the parts of a locomotive can now be manufactured in the shops, including all steel castings, and the actual cost of a locomotive built at Jamalpur is therefore considerably less than one purchased and imported. The Jamalpur built engines have given most satisfactory results.
There are of course larger railway shops existing in Europe, but few are more self-contained or better equipped with modern electrically-driven machinery than these workshops. The distance from England and the cost of freight, and the accompanying delays in complying with indents for materials, etc., have been successfully overcome by the liberal and progressive policy the Company have adopted in developing Jamalpur. It must not be overlooked that in addition to actual locomotive work, the workshops undertake work for the Engineering, Stores, Collieries and Carriage and Wagon Departments, the whole of the manufacture of the Denham & Olphert cast-iron sleeper, which is the standard in use on the line, being made here; the total value of the outturn for the Engineering Department in the half-year ending June 1905 being Rs. 10,77,375. All signalling and interlocking gear, posts, frames, etc., are manufactured complete, and this has become a very large item in the outturn, a more detailed description of which will be found below. It may truthfully be said that any general engineering work can be carried out in the shops, as occasion demands.
The question of the supply of native labour is now-a-days a serious one at Jamalpur, as the growth of the workshops has completely outgrown the local supply; it has therefore for some time past become necessary to bring in labour daily, from a distance of 19 miles on one side, 7 miles on another, as well as from Monghyr, the Civil Station, 6 miles distant. Workmen's trains are run out to these distances morning and evening to bring in and take back the workmen.
The water-supply of these large workshops is from time to time a source of anxiety. The daily consumption is about 350,000 gallons, and this is drawn from reservoirs in which rain water is stored, all available catchment area being "tapped" for the purpose; the supply therefore is entirely dependent on the rainfall. For a period of two months or so, on two occasions during the last few years, due to a short rainfall, the reservoirs have become completely exhausted, and water has had to be brought in from the Ganges, 6 miles distant, in trains, and the shops thus kept in full work. This is a most expensive as well as unsatisfactory undertaking. It would seem that the only natural source from which a never-failing supply could be derived is the river Ganges at Monghyr, which is 6 miles distant.
The following is a list of the shops, with a brief description of certain of the most important:—
Steel Foundry.- The institution of a steelmaking plant was due to the late Locomotive Superintendent of the Railway, Mr. A. W. Rendell, and was commenced in 1898. It then consisted of a 7-ton Siemens Martin open hearth furnace. Since then, at the suggestion of Mr. Tomyns R. Browne, the present Locomotive Superintendent, the furnace has been enlarged to a capacity of 10 tons, and a two-ton Tropenas, converter plant has been added for small castings.
Iron Foundry.- This shop is probably one of the finest of its kind existing, covering as it does a floor area of nearly 100,000 square feet. The cupolas are charged from a bank, on which material is delivered in trucks on the same level as the charging doors. The average output of the foundry is 100 tons a day of finished castings. The pig iron used is chiefly from the Bengal Iron & Steel Company of Barakar. There are about 1,800 employs in this shop, of which a portion are coolie women.
Laboratory.- Close to the Foundries is situated the Laboratory, equipped with the necessary apparatus for determining the quality of metals and other materials, and their suitability for the purposes for which they are intended. The existence of the laboratory, under the supervision of a chemist and metallurgist, enables the manufacturing departments to be run on scientific and-up-to date lines.
Rolling Mill.- This shop was first started in 1879 and consisted of a 10-inch mill. Since then it has increased very considerably and now contains, in addition, a 12-inch and 14-inch mill, 3.5-ton steam hammer, a fishplate machine, and billet shears. Steam for driving the rolling mill engines is generated in boilers fixed on the top of the furnaces, and heated by the gases from the furnaces. The mill turns out the various sections of steel and iron rou-n6a, and angles required in the works, as well as fishplates. The outturn is about 400 tons a month.
Erecting and Fitting Shop.- This shop consists of three bays and a lean-to, each of a total length of 840 ft., and covering an area of 149,640 sq. ft. Two bays and the lean-to are occupied as erecting shops, while the third bay is used as a fitting shop. Each erecting shop bay is served with two electric overhead cranes of 30-ton capacity each, and the fitting shop with a 10-ton crane of same design. This shop is probably the finest erecting shop in existence.
Point Crossing and Signal and Interlocking Shop.- The work of constructing crossings and signals was first undertaken at Jamalpur in 1894, and at that time a small space of the tender shop was sufficient for its demands. Such was the rapid increase of this branch of work, that it very shortly necessitated the giving up of the whole of the tender shop, which had to be removed elsewhere. Lately another signal and interlocking shop has had to be added, and this branch is now equipped with its own machine tools, all operated by electricity, a small smithy with pneumatic hammers, etc. The output last year comprised 31 complete interlocking frames varying in size from 4 to 85 levers.
Machine Shops.- The work is divided into two sections, viz., general machine work, and locomotive machine work, each being accommodated in separate shops, the general machine shop covering a space of 49,950 square feet, and the other 51,615. As far as possible, the machines are grouped to avoid unnecessary handling of material, and to ensure a continuous sequence from roughing to finishing.
The other shops are as follows:—
Brass Foundry, Forge, Smithy, Pattern, Carpenter, Bolt and Nut, Brass Finishing, Tin and Coppersmiths', Cold Saw, Chain-testing, Wheel, Boiler, Millwright, Paint, and Tender Shop. In addition to which there is a large Detail Store.
I will conclude this chapter on Jamalpur by a brief description of the introduction of electricity into the workshops. The scheme for driving the workshops by electricity was first put forward when Mr. A. W. Rendell was Locomotive Superintendent, and the electric power house actually commenced work in 1901. It then consisted of three Belliss-Holmes direct-coupled sets, each of 100 Kilowatt output. The power house is situated centrally with a view to the most economic distribution of electric power to the various workshops. Later expansion has comprised the addition of a 300-kw. condensing turbo-generator of the Parson's type running at 3,000 revolutions per minute. The power is distributed to the shops from various service switch panels, which control the circuits going to the shops. The electrical energy conveyed to the shops is transformed into mechanical power by means of electric motors, which are in part arranged for driving machine tools, placed in convenient groups, and in part disposed for individual drives. There are some 25 electrically-operated cranes, ranging from 2 to 30 tons in lifting capacity, and the motor equipment of these, together with the remainder of the shop driving, comprise an aggregate of some 1,500 H.-P.
Steam at 150lb. pressure per square inch is furnished to the generators from a battery of fourteen boilers of the Babcock & Wilcox type, of which eight are hand and six are mechanically fired. Natural draught is furnished by two steel chimneys, each 120 feet high, having a clear diameter of 5 feet 6 inches. These chimneys were built at Jamalpur, and erected section by section.
The boundary of the workshops is lighted by means of arc lamps, worked from a Thomson-Houston series arc light machine, which in turn is driven by a direct-coupled electric motor. An electricity supply to the greater part of the Company's houses and buildings, including the Mechanics' Institute, is afforded from the power house. Current for fans and lights in the buildings is supplied from a ring main, fed at suitable points by service feeders. The ring main is supplied automatically at constant vcvsimoxiit, means of a specially-designed Booster. The distributing network consists of bare copper aerial conductors, carried on steel poles, about 25 feet above ground level. Each house is furnished with an electricity meter. The provision of electric fans and lights adds very considerably to the comfort and welfare of the occupants of the houses during the hot weather.
Much might be said concerning the sanitation of the station, suffice to say it is considered the model Municipality of Bengal."
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