Great Indian Peninsula Railway
Formed in 1845, it was not until 1849 (at the urging of the then Governor, Lord Dalhousie) that the East India Company contracted the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) to construct a railway eastward from Bombay. The first sod was turned on 31 October 1850 and the first locomotive was used in construction on 22 December 1851, but the first passenger train in India did not run until 16 April 1853, when a train, with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests, left Bombay bound for Thane, hauled by three locomotives: Sindh, Sultan, and Sahib. The 21 mile journey took an hour and fifteen minutes over the first section of the GIPR to be opened.
Like most of the early railways in India, the GIPR was a British company, registered in London, privately owned and financed, operating under license and guarantee from the (British) Board of Control in India.
When, in 1871, the GIPR eventually reached Allahabad and linked to the East India Railway, it completed Dalhousie’s dream of a Bombay-Calcutta route.
Records
The following are held in the India Office Records at the British Library.
- L/AG/46/12/86 : GIPR Lists of appointments (officers 1849-1885; workmen 1852-1880)
- L/AG/46/12/88 : GIPR Contracts of employment (officers 1886-1925; workmen 1881-1925)
Both of the above are indexed in
- Z/L/AG/46 : Index to UK Appointments to Indian Railways (1849-1925)
External Links
Great Indian Peninsula Railway logo
