User:PEA-2292/My sandbox

Frederick Smith Stanton (1832-1892) Major General R.E. Superintending Engineer of Rajputana State Railway at Delhi Director General of Indian Railways from 1882 to 1884

Railway Achievements

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Frederick_Smith_Stanton

• 1860-62; State Railways appointed as Deputy Consulting Engineer, his duties being to act as Assistant to the Government Inspecting Officer, who exercised control over the company constructing the railway, under contract, with Government guarantee.
• 1867-68; State Railways appointed as Consulting Engineer and Joint Secretary in the Railway Department of the Bengal Government

He acted in 1864 as Executive Engineer in the Darjeeling Division, during which charge he was detached on military duty with the Dooar Field Force. He soon joined the railway department again, and, after acting from August, 1867, to March, 1868, as Consulting Engineer and Joint Secretary in the Railway Department of the Bengal Government, was transferred to Oudh, where he performed similar duties under the Chief Commissioner of that Province, and in 1869 the Railway Department of the North-West Provinces was added to his charge. In 1871 the Government resolved to undertake the construction of metre-gauge railways in Rajputana, to facilitate the supply of salt from the Great Salt Lake at Sambhar to the North-West Provinces, and to get rid of the vexatious salt-customs barrier. Captain Stanton was selected to take charge as Superintending Engineer of one portion of the railway from Delhi to Rewari and Bandakui, with a branch to Farakhnagar. He was gazetted Major on the 5th of July of the following year. Shortly before the completion of this section the famine of 1873-74 broke out in Behar and Tirhoot; Stanton was sent on emergency duty to construct a short line of 63 miles from the Ganges to Durbhunga in Tirhoot, which he opened for traffic in fifty-three days. The construction of this temporary line, which was carried out at the rate of a mile a day, was, in the words of Sir Richard Temple, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, "an extraordinary achievement in respect of speed. To carry the line over a country intersected by three considerable streams; to make it strong enough to carry 2,000 tons in a day; to open it within the prescribed time, demanded primarily an indefatigable energy, but also professional skill and administrative ability. All these qualities were displayed by Major F. S. Stanton, R.E., the Engineer-in-Chief. Having made this line, he worked its heavy traffic with the same efficiency." The thanks of the Government were given to him for this work, as well as for his services on the Rajputana Railway. On the completion of the Delhi District of the Rajputana Railway, Major Stanton was appointed in October, 1875, an extra Deputy Consulting Engineer for Guaranteed Railways, and in February, 1876, Engineer-in-Chief of the Tirhoot State Railway then in course of extension. On the 10th of March he was gazetted Lieut.-Colonel, and in the following year acted as Director of the North-Eastern section of State Railways and Joint Secretary to the Government of Bengal in the Railway Department, and in 1880 as Secretary to the Public Works Department of the same Government. In the latter part of 1881 he served as Acting Director-General of Railways and Deputy Secretary to Government, to which office he was permanently appointed in 1882, and which he held for five years. He was gazetted Colonel on the 16th of September, 1886, and in the following February retired from the service with the honorary rank of Major-General, having attained the highest grade in the Public Works Department- that of Chief Engineer 1st class. On returning to England he continued, until his death on the 22nd of January, 1892, to serve on the Boards of the East Indian and the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Companies.