Frederick Lewis Dibblee

Frederick Lewis Dibblee (1837-1888) was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He was trained as a railway engineer in Canada, worked in Brazil and Prussia, and then spent the rest of his working life in India and Burma, dying of a fever in Calcutta.

Railway Achievements In India/Burma

The following extracted from two references :-

• 1864 Nov; First arrival in Madras. In India he found his proper sphere, and the remainder of his career was passed in that country, in active and continuous employment, mostly on railway work.
• 1864-68 Great Southern of India Railway, Madras. After being District Engineer for a year and a half, he became Chief Engineer, a position he continued to hold until August 1868.
• 1868-74 Carnatic Railway, Chief Engineer
• 1874 Public Works Department(PWD), presumably Railway Branch
• 1874-79 Indus Valley State Railway, Executive Engineer 2nd Grade, Mooltan, Golki,Upper Sindh Section,Mehur Division, Lower Sindgh Section, Mehur Division, Kotri Division
• 1879-80 Punjab Northern State Railway, Executive Engineer 1st Grade, Jhelum Dision, Rawlpindi Section
• 1880 Sindia State Railway, Superintending Engineer, deployed from PWD to Gwalior and Jhansi Division Survey

Among other work, he was engaged on the then Punjab Northern, the Southern Mahratta, the Cuddapah, Nellore and Orissa Railway surveys; and in Burma on the Tounghoo-Mandalay Railway.

• 1881 Delhi and Ferozpore Railway Survey , deployed from PWD to Kadapa
• 1881 Nagpur Railway Survey , deployed from PWD to near Bilaspur
• 1882 South Mahratta Railway, deployed from PWD
• 1882 West Deccan Railway Survey, Engineer-in-Chief , deployed from PWD .
• 1882 Nellore Tirupati Railway Survey, deployed from PWD
• 1854 Cuddapah Nellore State Railway, deployed from PWD ,
• 1885 Benares, Cuttock, Puri Railway Survey, deployed from PWD to Sumulpore (Sambalpur) Division
• 1886-88, posted to Burma from PWD in chargeToungoo-Mandalay Division, Burma
• 1888 Delhi-Kotri Survey, Rajpootana, (later incorporated with Southern Mahratta Railway). He died at Calcutta on the 28th of September, 1888, having just been posted to join Mr. Horace Bell's staff for the Desert Railway survey in Rajpootana.

Mr. Dibblee acquired a reputation in the Punjab for his bold and skilful construction of temporary timber stagings, made from railway sleepers, for the erection of iron bridges. These stagings were devised so that the progress of the work should not be interrupted by freshets or floods in the nullah-bed, as was the case with ordinary stagings. He was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 6th of December, 1864, and was transferred to Member on the 23rd of February, 1869.