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| Feb 10, 2004 4:41 pm |
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Discover Mumbai - The Series |
Nehul Goradia
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Sir Fu Lancelot,
I accept the honour of writing the inaugural piece on Discover Mumbai - The Series.
I thought to start with I should write on a service which is a very inherent part of Mumbai - The Railways.
The Railways have served as the lifeline of Bombay ever since the first train ran at 3:35pm on April 16th, 1853, when a train with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests left Bombay's Bori Bunder for Thane, with a 21-gun salute. It was hauled by three locomotives: Sindh, Sultan, and Sahib. The journey took an hour and fifteen minutes.
Ever since then life in Bombay (oopps.. Mumbai - forgive my fufa...) cannot be imagined without the Railways.
The first trains had extremely uncomfortable third class coaches. There were no seats, and the windows could be reached only by rather tall people. These coaches were called, quite appropriately, Bakra Gadi.
In 1855 the Bombay Baroda and Central Indian Railway Company (BB & CI) was incorporated and undertook to build a line from Surat to Bombay. Work commenced in the same year, and was completed in 1864. In 1863 a railway line to the Deccan over the Bhor Ghat was inaugurated by Sir Bartle Frere.
BB&CI started the first suburban line, between Virar and a station in Bombay Backbay, in the year 1867. In the beginning there was only one train each way every day, but the number of trains began to increase from the 1870's. In 1872 the line was extended to Arthur Bunder in Colaba.
The Harbour line of the GPI was started in February 1925. About the same time, electrification of the suburban railways began.
The above is just a bit of History after a brief research. I now request Fu Ranten to start fufaing by writing the next article on the series.
Pls send me your views on the above.
Cheers,
Fu Nehul
Private Reply to Nehul Goradia (new win) |
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