Calcutta Port Commissioners' Railway

Calcutta Port Commissioners' Railway

Calcutta Port History

See Calcutta Port and Docks - Railways for early proposals on the developments of Calcutta Port

Calcutta is India’s only inland port, lying around 125 miles(200km) from the Bay of Bengal on the Hooghly River. Before the British established a port there, both the Portugese and the Dutch had used the Hooghly for trade and had established jetties in the area. However British private traders and merchants built a number of piers and jetties on the river from the middle of the 17th century, first developed port facilities on the Howrah at Calcutta. By 1758 these came under control of the ‘EIC Marine Establishment’. In addition to the private jetties, the EIC had their own jetties, wharf and a dock and marine yard at Kidderpore. In 1866 the control of the facilities passed to ‘Calcutta Municipality’ to the Government of Bengal and by 1870 who formed the ‘Calcutta Port Commissioners’ to run the port .

Bird & Company were awarded a Contract in 1873 from the provincial government of Bengal which, faced with famine, had sought to import some 70,000 tons of rice into Calcutta by the end of 1874 over 4000,000 tons of rice had been handled. In 1880 the CPCR awarded a Contract to load and unload wagons of the railway line that ran throgh the length of the Port providing it with a vital link to the growing Indian railway netrwork. See Bird & Company for more information.

During the building of the 'Calcutta Port Commissioners' Kidderpore Dock in the mid 1880's a 3½ mile(5.6km) long temporary line was laid for the transportation of bricks from Akra for the new docks. It is thought this was a broad gauge(BG) line using locomotives and wagons on hire from the Calcutta Municipal Railway . See Akra Brick Factory Tramway/Railway for more information.

Calcutta Port Commissioners' Railway

The’ Calcutta Port Commissioners' Railway’(CPCR) was a broad gauge(BG) port railway that opened in stages from 1875 onwards serving the docks area of Calcutta along the bank of the Hooghly from Chitpur in the north to Kidderpore Docks in the south.

The first CPCR line was from Bagh Bazar to Meerbohur Ghat a distance of 1¾ miles(2.8km), prior to this the Calcutta Municipal Railway for transferring wagons from the East Bengal Railway Sealdah station to Bagh Bazar. Until the first locomotives arrived in 1877 the CPCR used East Indian Railway locomotives. Wagon ferries were used for transferring wagons from the port across the Hooghly to the Bengal-Nagpur Railway at Shalimar .

The 1918 Administration Report states:- "The railway serves the godowns, warehouses, jetties, workshops, jute, sugar, tea, rice and grain depots, timber yards, mills and coal depots on both the Calcutta and Howrah Foreshores and is used only for goods traffic. The railway consists of single and double tracks, and there are a large number of sidings for crossing trains and loading goods. The mileage of all tracks including all sidings amounts to 154.28"

The following table gives the various CPCR lines that were operational in the late 1920’s .

CPCR Lines and opening dates

Route of line	Date	Length miles	(km)
Bagh Bazar - Meerbohur Ghat	Jan 1875	1.76 miles	(2.8km)
Cossipore(Gun Foundry Road) - Bagh Bazar(Chitpur)	Jun 1878	1.14 miles	(1.8km)
Meerbohur Ghat-Jetties	Jun 1878	0.94 miles	(1.5km)
Jetties - Chandpul Ghat	Dec 1880	0.32 miles	(0.5km)
Chandpul Ghat - Kidderpore Dock(Graving dock)	Jan 1887	2.16 miles	(3.5km)
Graving dock(via Kidderpore Dock) - Majerhat(East Dock Junction)	1893	2.34 miles	(3.7km)
East Dock Junction - West Dock Junction(BNR)	1901	1.35 miles	(2.2km)
East Dock Junction - Garden Reach berths	Jul 1916	2.65 miles	(4.2km)
Telkul Ghat(EIR) - Shalimar(BNR)	Dec 1901	2.20 miles	(3.5km)
East Dock Junction - Chetla	1893	1.50 miles	(2.4km)
Subsidiary Marshalling Yard - King George's Dock	1928	1.25 miles	(2.0km)
Kidderpore Docks section		87.71 miles	(141.2km)
King George's Dock & Garden Reach section		41.56 miles	(66.9km)
Calcutta & Shalimar section		36.40 miles	(58.6km)
Total track in mainlines, marshalling yards, sidings etc		198.49 miles	(319.4km)

The 1937 ‘History Of Indian Railways’ states :-
“The railway at the present date provides the terminal for the East Indian(EIR), the Eastern Bengal (EBR) and Bengal Nagpur(BNR) Railways for goods traffic to and from the Port of Calcutta. It also deals with local goods traffic within the Port between warehouses, sheds and the stea mer berths on the rivere front and at the Kidderpore Docks and the King George’s Dock.”
”The EIR connects to the system at East Dock Junction (via the EBR) and at Telkul Ghat on the Howrah side of the River. The EBR at Bracebridge Station and Chitpur. The BNR at West Dock Junction and at Shalimar Junction on the Howrah side.”
The total system mileage in 1937 was recorded as 182.7 miles(294km) including main lines, branches, marshalling yards, sidings etc.

Classification

Indian Railway Classification of 1926 - Class III railway system.

Modern CPCR History

Now known as ‘Kolkata Port Trust Railway’. Some sections of this railway are still in use, while some are abandoned. It is reported that 'the sections connecting the Outram Ghat area just outside of Kidderpore have become part of the Circular Railway, with scheduled passenger services. The Kidderpore section, on the other hand, is largely in disuse, although sections of it are in intermittent operation.'