James John Berkley

James John Berkley (1819-1862)
Chief Engineer of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway(GIPR) from 1850 to 1856.
The account below extracted from Grace’s Guide .

At the end of 1849, on the strong recommendation of Robert Stephenson, Brunei, Cubitt, Rennie, Bidder, and other eminent engineers, Berkley was appointed chief resident engineer of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway(GIPR), and in this capacity he constructed the first line of railway that was opened in India.

Railway Achievements in India

• 1850 GIPR Chief Engineer. Having first decided on a scheme for the construction of a short line of thirty-three miles from Bombay to Callian, he turned his attention to the extensions of the railway, and especially to the great work involved in carrying the line over the Western Ghats Mountains, and designed two great inclines ascending mountains more than 2,000 feet high—the Bhore Ghat and the Thul Ghat.
• 1852 the surveys were begun, and four years were spent in surveying the Bhore Ghat. On 16 April 1863 the first twenty miles of the line from Bombay to Tanna were opened for public traffic, thus initiating the Indian railway system.
• 1856 the north-eastern line by the Thul Ghat was sanctioned by the Indian government, thus completing the GIPR system projected by Berkley, comprising a total length of 1,237 miles, and forming a grand trunk communication by the north-eastern line between Bombay, Calcutta, and the north-west, and by the south-eastern line between Bombay and Madras, including also an important line to Nagpore.

In all these operations Berkley evinced the highest technical skill, firmness, and tact. He was a zealous advocate of the contract system, then regarded with some suspicion by the government, and he was strongly in favour of the employment of native agency. This gained him great popularity with the natives of Bombay.
His health failing, Berkley came in 1856 to England, but revisited India to see his cherished work on the Bhore Ghât fully developed. Compelled, however, by ill-health to leave India, he returned to England in April 1861, but his constitution was undermined by hard work in a tropical climate, and he died at Sydenham on 26 Aug. 1862 at the comparatively early age of 42.