There is a Panel discussion on Dabhoi Lines

PANEL DISCUSSION

TOPIC          : DOES DOCUMENTING THE ROLE OF RAILWAYS IN THE SOCIO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF A REGION AND ITS HERITAGE VALUE HAVE IMPORTANT LESSONS FOR TRANSPORT PLANNING AND POLICY IN INDIA – A CRITIQUE OF THE DABHOI LINES.

PANELIST:1. Shri V.N. Mathur, Managing Director, Dahej Rail Corpn. & former  Member Traffic, Railway Board

2. Shri Govind Ballabh, Advisor, DMRC and former DRM, Baroda

3. Prof. Ravi Shanker Srivastava, Jawaharlal Nehru University

4. Prof. Adhya Saxena, Head of Dept. (History) M S University, Baroda.

5. Shri A.K. Srivastava, Chief Claim Officer, Western Railway and earlier DRM, Vadodara. 

MODERATOR: Shri Pramod Uniyal, Secretary/IRT

VENUE : Conference Hall (Room No. 267), Rail Bhawan, Raisina Road, New Delhi – 110 001

DATE : 29th August, 2012 (Wednesday)

TIME : 3.00 PM to 5.00PM

Sir Mark Tully, former BBC Correspondent and Eminent Author will address the audience prior to the Panel Discussion 

Pithora Painting showing train 

Old Time Table 

Foreword by Sir Mark Tully

( excerpts) 

 The engineers who built the Indian railways  constructed lines that climbed mountains, crossed deserts, ran the length of the Gangetic plain, linked the great centers of commerce, and provided relief for remote villagers threatened with famine. As the renowned travel writer and railway traveler Paul Theroux has rightly said, “the railway builders sewed together the entire subcontinent with a stitching of track.”  

Although the imperious Governor General of India, Lord Dalhousie, had decreed that there should only be one gauge so that India would avoid the problems Britain created by building two different gauges, eventually the Indian subcontinent was sewn together with stitches of four different sizes. This book tells the story of the network which pioneered the two smallest gauges of railways in India, known as the narrow gauges. The Dabhoi system consisted of branch lines constructed  on a gauge only two foot six wide because the traffic was never going to warrant the expense of the broad gauge, but it was firmly stitched to the mainline.

The railways of India still stitch this vast nation together. Ask a Mumbai taxi driver how he gets back to his village in Uttar Pradesh for his annual visit and he will probably say  “Pushpak Express”. The suburban railways stitch the city of Mumbai itself together. Commuters, pour down the steps of Mumbai’s Churchgate station in a veritable stream of humanity every morning.  Travelling many thousands of miles by train I have met politicians and pilgrims, holiday makers and those intent on doing business, students and their teachers, army officers and other ranks. 

The Dabhoi railways main purpose was to replace the bullock carts which carried opium grown in the Gaikwad’s state, Baroda,  on the first stage of its journey to the ports from where the drug  was shipped to China. In the nineteenth century opium stemmed the flow of silver from the imperial coffers. It balanced the books which had been severely in the red because of Britain’s demand for Chinese tea, textiles, spices, and other commodities. When the opium trade ended the Dabhoi railways busied themselves carrying cotton, again serving imperial interests by keeping the mills of Manchester spinning and weaving. 

The history of the Dabhoi Railways illustrates how the interests of Britain were served not just by the commodities the trains carried but also by the way they were constructed, and equipped.
 . A great deal  has been written about the mountain narrow gauge lines but historians have not had much to say about the lines that ran in the plains., so this history of the pioneering Dabhoi lines is particularly valuable, and makes fascinating reading.  

Chapter 1

 ( From book Dabhoi Lines)

Bombay se Baroda tak

Kennedy Bridge, located amongst hustle bustle of shops, houses and many activities, very close to Grant Road station, witnesses hundreds of local trains passing under it every day. It is one amongst many bridges created long ago to make road and rail traffic co exist peacefully. Most of these bridges were named after Governors, (Frere, Reay, Carnac, Elphinstone amongst them) but this and one more were named after men who made link of Mumbai with Western and Northern India possible. Kennedy Bridge, an observer to growth of first B.B. &C.I. and now Western Railway, was named after Lieutenant Colonel John Pitt Kennedy, a visionary and planner who dreamt about western lines and executed it. Not very far from this bridge is another one named after Colonel P.T.French, co founder of B.B. &C.I. and whose statue shares pedestal with Kennedy at Church Gate headquarters of Western Railway.   J.P.Kennedy, mooted the idea for western lines linking Bombay with Northern-Western part of country and Baroda was an important part of his plans. His scheme got some initial resistance but was supported by Sir J.P. Grant, which made it see light of the day (not the one on whom Grant Road station has been named. Like most of the bridges stations too have been named on Bombay Governors and Grant Road was named on Sir Robert Grant, Governor of Bombay (1835-1839), son of Charles Grant, Chairman of Directors of East India Company. It is another matter that Sir J.P. Grant was at one time considered for gubernatorial assignment during 1861 and 1862, but Lord Canning before his retirement recommended name of Sir Bartle Frere (Sir Bartle Frere and his times: a study of his Bombay years, 1862-1867 By Rekha Ranade) who assumed charge on 22^nd April 1862.)

Plan for linking Mumbai with Western –Northern India via Vadodara (then Baroda) was part of early schemes. Introduction of Railway in India was much debated in 1840s. In October 1846, a committee of Court of Directors presented its report dealing with the general issues and listed number of projects which can be taken. There were 15 projects, and 14^th was ‘ Bombay,Surat,Barodah’. Except two suggested lines, number 4 and 12, linking Calcutta and Diamond Harbor and Madras with Pondicherry via Arcot , all other projects were undertaken, suggesting meticulous analysis.

However, Board of Directors declined to accept specific proposals and confined their remarks to the question of introduction of railways into India. They resolved that the first line in India ought to be long one and first railway line was to be from Calcutta to Delhi via Mirzapore. There was a lot of discussion about terms of guarantee and three members strongly dissented alleging that the state of information about railway in India is imperfect. On 19^th December 1846, result of deliberations was communicated to Board of control, which accepted need for early introduction of railways into India.

 East India Railway (E.I.R) was established on 1 June 1845 in London by a deed of settlement with a capital of £4,000,000, largely raised in London. It was the first railway company with a goal of introducing railway network to eastern and northern India. Second company to be incorporated was Great Indian Peninsular Railway (G.I.P.R.), linking Mumbai with Central India. The G.I.P.R was incorporated on August 1, 1849 by an act of the British Parliament. It had a share capital of 50,000 pounds. On August 17, 1849 it entered into a formal contract with the East India Company for the construction and operation of a line, 56 km long, to form part of a trunk line connecting Bombay with Khandesh and Berar and with the other presidencies of India. Company which was to link Mumbai with Vadodara, came much later in 1855, as there were many doubts and issues about linking Mumbai with the North-Western India.

Marine lines 

Church Gate

Bombay Central 

Some Old Railway Stations of B.B.C.I. ( now W.R.) India 

Ballard Pier 

Railway Poems 

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STEAMBOATS, VIADUCTS AND RAILWAYS  
   
 Motions and Means, on land and sea at war 
 With old poetic feeling, not for this, 
 Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss! 
 Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar 
 The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar 5 
 To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense 
 Of future change, that point of vision, whence 
 May be discovered what in soul ye are. 
 In spite of all that beauty may disown 
 In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace 10 
 Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time, 
 Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,
 Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown 
 Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime. 

William Wordsworth 

 

From a Railway Carriage by R.L. Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road

 

Railway Poems 

( these poems are displayed at Vadodara Railway Museum as a part of Gallery on Railway and Popular culture)

Restaurant Car by Louis MacNeice

Fondling only to throttle the nuzzling moment
Smuggled under the table, hungry or not
We roughride over the sleepers, finger the menu,
Avoid our neighbours' eyes and wonder what

Mad country moves beyond the steamed-up window
So fast into the past we could not keep
Our feet on it one instant. Soup or grapefruit?
We had better eat to pass the time, then sleep

To pass the time. The water in the carafe
Shakes its hips, both glass and soup plate spill,
The tomtom beats in the skull, the waiters totter
Along their invisible tightrope. For good or ill,

For fish or meat, with single tickets only,
Our journey still in the nature of a surprise,
Could we, before we stop where all must change,
Take one first risk and catch our neighbours' eyes?

Night Mail 

Mail crossing the bordThis is the Night Mer,

 Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

 Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

 The shop at the corner and the girl next door.

 Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:

 The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

 Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder

 Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

 Snorting noisily as she passes

 Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

 Birds turn their heads as she approaches,

 Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.

 Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;

 They slumber on with paws across.

 In the farm she passes no one wakes,

 But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

 Dawn freshens, the climb is done.

 Down towards Glasgow she descends

 Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,

 Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces

 Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.

 All Scotland waits for her:

 In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs

 Men long for news.

 Letters of thanks, letters from banks,

 Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,

 Receipted bills and invitations

 To inspect new stock or visit relations,

 And applications for situations

 And timid lovers' declarations

 And gossip, gossip from all the nations,

 News circumstantial, news financial,

 Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,

 Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,

 Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,

 Letters to Scotland from the South of France,

 Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands

 Notes from overseas to Hebrides

 Written on paper of every hue,

 The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,

 The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,

 The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,

 Clever, stupid, short and long,

 The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

 Thousands are still asleep

 Dreaming of terrifying monsters,

 Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:

 Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,

 Asleep in granite Aberdeen,

 They continue their dreams,

 And shall wake soon and long for letters,

 And none will hear the postman's knock 

Without a quickening of the heart,

 For who can bear to feel himself forgotten

W.H. Auden