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[[Image:Giprlogo.jpg|right]]
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.
