Madras Port Trust Railways

Madras Port Trust Railways

Privately owned railway and marshalling yard constructed during the early 1900's and still operational today. The Port Railway linked to the mainline.

History

The first port facility in Madras was a 1,100 foot(335 mtr) iron pier , perpendicular to the shore, constructed from 1861. The first railway equipment known to have been used was a 6 ton railway crane in 1877. The ‘Madras Port Trust’ was constituted in 1881 to take over the running of the site. This pier was breached during a cyclone in 1881 and reconstructed started in 1885. .

The pier was completed in 1862 and the harbour was begun in 1876 and by September 1881 was nearly completed. On November 12, 1881, a cyclone which, besides minor damage, washed away half mile of the breakwaters, threw the two top courses of concrete blocks into the harbour, hurled over two of the Titan cranes used on the works, lowered and spread out the rubble base of the breakwaters, and washed away miles of construction railway . The images of these construction can be seen on the Colombia University website ‘New Harbour Works at Madras’

In 1904 a new north-eastern entrance was constructed after the original eastern entrance was closed.

At about this time the Pallavaram Quarry, 20 km south west of Madras, was being developed as source of granite for construction and maintenance of the Madras Port. The stone was transported using the South Indian Railway(SIR) metre gauge(MG) mainline .The granite was also used for the construction of roads in the Madras area. The granite was carried via the SIR line to Madras Port and onward via the ‘Cochrane’s Canal‘, (later renamed the ‘Buckingham Canal’ )

• ’Export Jetty Tramway’. In 1905 a 2ft/610mm narrow gauge(NG) hand-worked tramway was laid for the movement of export cargo .

In 1904 the Port Railway system had 2½ miles (4km) of track, with two locomotives, increasing to 9 locomoties by 1909. By 1914 this had increased to 14½ miles(23km). By 1955 the system had 19.35 miles(31km) of mixed gauge line of which 3.85 miles(6km) carried passenger services connecting to the steamer services from the Port .

The quays were served by a network of Port railways, both broad gauge(BG and metre gauge(MG) which connected to the mainline networks  :-

• Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway(M&SMR) broad gauge(BG at Royapuram Siding linking to the ‘North-East Mainline’ to Calcutta and New Delhi etc., and ‘South-West Mainline’ to Bangalore, Coimbatore etc
• South Indian Railway(SIR) metre gauge(MG) at Madras Beach Station on the ‘Madras-Vilupuram Section’ to connect Chennai Port to Southern parts of Tamil Nadu

The Port is linked to Southern Railway network via Chennai Beach Railway Siding which connects Chennai Port to Southern parts of Tamil Nadu and via Royapuram Siding which connects Southern Railway Trunk line to Kolkata, New Delhi, Bangalore, Coimbatore etc

New quays were built:- South Quay I in 1913; five West Quays between 1916 and 1920; North quay in 1931 and South Quay II in 1936 .

Today named the ‘Chennai Port’ it has a Terminal Shunting Yard and runs its own Railway operations inside the harbour. The Port is having railway lines running up to 68 kms.

1937 Report

The 1937 ‘History of Indian Railways’ reported as follows:-

• The Madras Port Trust Railway consists of 17.17 miles of mixed gauge railway (5 feet 6 inch and Metre) of which only 1.70 miles have been passed by the Government Inspector of Railways for the carriage of passengers. The railway is connected with the Madras and South Mahratta Railway Co Ltd (S&SMR) (broad gauge) at Royapuram and the South Indian Railway Co Ltd(SIR) (metre gauge) at Madras Beach Station. The railway is used for receiving, delivering, transporting, booking and despatching only such goods and carrying only such passengers as enter or leave the Trust’s premises by sea ...
• The Railway was gradually brought into being for the better performance of the services which the Trust, purely as a Port Trust, is enabled, under its act, to perform for the public within its premises. Up to the 1st November 1916 the duty of delivering incoming goods to consignees and the duty of booking outgoing goods from the Harbour were performed by the neighbouring M&SMR and SIR as the case might be. These Railways were provided by the Trust with sufficient accommodation within its premises to carry on their business without the intervention of the Trust. The Trust confined itself to the haulage, loading and unloading of wagons within its premises on behalf of the Railways, while the latter collected from owner’s on the Trust’s behalf the charges levied by the Trust for such services.
• Since 1st November 1916 the booking and delivery of rail-bourne goods with the Trust’s premises are being carried out by the Trust instead of by the Railways under suitable working agreements.
• Ownership of the line is owned and worked by the Madras Port Trust.

The ‘Statistics of Working’ show the year-by-year financial results from 1917-18 through to 1936-37. It also details the line lengths varying over the years with 18 miles for 1929-30, then rising to 18.18 miles reducing to 17.17 miles by 1937<ref name=Hist1937>.

Classification

Indian Railway Classification of 1926 - Class III railway system