Bhore Ghat Railway Construction

Bhore Ghat Railway Construction

The Reversing Station Bhore Ghat Railway Incline.

The Bhore Ghat Railway incline, constructed 1856-63 carried the south-eastern line of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) through the Western Ghats.

The incline was sixteen miles (19km) long, rising over 1,800 vertical feet (550 Metres) in that distance. The gradient was 1 in 40, with 2 miles of 1 in 37. No fewer than ten and a half miles were curved, and there were twenty-five tunnels, with a total length of two and a half miles, also eight lofty viaducts varying in height up to 160 ft.

Except for a realignment to eliminate the reversing station, which somewhat lengthened the route, this incline remains to-day very much as it was then constructed.

Construction Personnel

• Civil Engineers:
  • Robert Stephenson , Consulting Engineer GIPR, based in England, 1849- until his death 1859
  • Arthur Anderson West, Consultant Engineer 1847 - 1867, (surveyor of the Bhore Gate Incline)
  • James John Berkley, GIPR Chief Engineer, 1849 - 1862 (surveyor and route designer)
  • Charles Buchanan Ker, GIPR 2nd Engineer 1850 -
  • Robert W Graham, GIPR 3rd Engineer 1850 -
  • Robert Maitland Brereton, Assistant Engineer
  • GIPR Engineers: Messrs Adamson and Clowser, replaced by Messrs West and Tate in November 1859; and Robert Edwin Wright, Assistant Engineer in 1862.

• Construction Contractors
  • 1855, The contract was awarded to William Frederick Faviell and work begun at Bhore Ghat on 24 January 1856 .
  • In March 1859, Faviell gave up his contract; for a short time, two GIPR engineers, Swainson Adamson and George Louis Clowser, carried on the work .
  • The GIPR construction contract was relet in November 1859 to Solomon Tredwell who died within fifteen days of landing in India. His wife, Alice Tredwell, assumed the contract and appointed Messrs Adamson and Clowser to manage the contract for her in her absence, as Mrs Tredwell returned to England. This arrangement was to last seven years .
  • Adamson and Clowser "carried on the work with the greatest zeal and ability. "Labour management could limit construction progress, but “by their good and liberal management (Adamson and Clowser) collected and kept on the work a force of 25,000 men during two seasons, and in 1861 of more than 42,000 men” .

External links

• "Bhor Ghat" Wikipedia
• Photograph: "The Reversing Station, Bhore Ghat Railway Incline" c 1872. "View looking along the track towards the reversing station on the Bhore Ghat Incline on the Bombay Poona line...In the print, the line at the right ascends from Karjat. The train then proceeds to the sidings in the background and continues the ascent by reversing up the middle track. The track on the left is a catch siding for descending trains; this safety measure did not however prevent 14 deaths in January 1869, after a brake failure caused the Poona to Bombay mail train to crash over the edge. In the left background can be seen the rocky outcrop known as the Duke's Nose." Image 93, "Photographs of India (Y3022C-E)" a collection of photographs by Samuel Bourne, Bourne and Shepherd, and Charles Shepherd. Royal Commonwealth Society Collection, University of Cambridge. cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk
• Two photographs, "View of the Bhore Ghats near Khandalla", c 1910-1915 View 1, View 2. University of Minnesota Libraries, Ames Library of South Asia.

Historical books online

• Paper on the Bhore Ghaut Incline of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. Read at the Bombay Mechanics' Institution in the Town Hall, Bombay, on Monday, December 21, 1857. With an appendix by A.A. West. by James J. Berkley (James John), published 1863. British Library Digital.

Further Information

See Great Indian Peninsula Railway