East Coast State Railway

The East Coast State Railway (ECSR) was a guaranteed company formed in 1890 to undertake the construction and working of a railway line on the from Bezwada(Vijaywada) junction point of Southern Mahratta Railway and to join the Nizam's Guaranteed State Railway at Cuttack. It also provided an interchange with the metre gauge(MG) Bellary-Kistna State Railway at Kistna south of the river Kistna.

History

In 1899 the Survey of Rail line was ordered by the Government of Madras and undertaken by the the Public Works Department (PWD) . The construction of this broad gauge(BG) line, and named the East Coast Railway, was sanctioned in 1889-90 - see 'Personnel'.

The route included the construction of the Kistna Bridge at Bezwada to cross the River Kistna. This bridge was designed by Sir Alexander Rendel with F J E Spring as Engineer-in-Chief and Ernest Ifill Shadbolt as Executive Engineer on construction.

The ECSR opened the line from Cuttack via Khurda Road to Puri in 1893, having a comparatively brief existence before being divided.

Personnel

The "1905 India List" records the following staff from the Public Works Department posted to the East Coast State Railway (ECSR)

• Survey and Construction
  • Henry Wilkins Clift, 1889, ECSR Survey, Executive Enginner .
  • Bernard Baxter, 1889, ECSR Executive Engineer in Madras .
  • Francis Joseph Edward Spring, 1890, ECSR Engineer-in-Chief
  • Frank Haman Walford Morse, 1890, ECSR Survey, Executive Engineer and in 1894, Executive Engineer on open sections of line .
  • Abel John Oldham, 1890, ECSR Executive Engineer .

• Management
  • Alfred Brereton, 1893, ECSR Manager and Engineer-in-Chief .
  • Willoughby Verner Constable, 1898, ECSR Manager .

The Southern part of ECSR was transferred to the Madras Railway(MR) in 1901; subsequently renamed Madras (North-East) Railway, becoming part of Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway(M&SMR) in 1908.

The other part of ECSR was absorbed by the Bengal-Nagpur Railway in 1902.

Records

Unfortunately, there are no ECSR Staff appointments held in the India Office Records at the British Library.

An on-line search of the India Office Records (IOR) records held at the British Library relating to this railway gives the following:-

• L/F/8/16/1091; "Bengal-Nagpur Railway, Contract as to taking over a part of East Coast State Railway and construction of extensions and branch lines"; 23 Jan 1902
• L/F/8/16/1104; "Madras Railway Company, Contract as to maintenance, management and working of a portion of the East Coast Railway by the Company"; 31 Dec 1902