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[[Category:Top level]]===THIS TOPIC IS PRESENTLY A WORK-IN-PROGRESS AND LIABLE TO BROKEN LINKS AND SUDDEN CHANGE!===
Major development/implemenatation of new categories + links
[[image:India railways1909a.jpg|thumb|General map of railways in India as of 1909]]
'''The railways in India were subject to constant changes of ownership, amalgamations and adjustments over the years. The categorisation below and the list at the bottom is intended to be comprehensive but not exhaustive.''' The early railway companies were UK companies operating in India. Later the British Government of India (GoI) owned the majority and either managed them directly or leased them back to private management. From circa 1925 most railways were both owned and managed and owned by the GoI. The railways in India were subject to constant changes of ownership, amalgamations and adjustments over the years.
*[[:Category:Guaranteed Railways|Guaranteed Railways]] included those railway companies, formed by 1859, to which the East India Company, later the GoI, guaranteed a fixed return on capital.
*[[Un-guaranteed :Category:Private Railways|Private Railways]] (those built without a guarantee) were few in munber (- only two were formed in the period 1850-1866 and both these were re-constituted by 1870).
*[[:Category:State Railways|State Railways]] were those either built and run directly by the GoI, or those where the GoI exercised its right to assume ownership (which it did gradually with all the original guaranteed railways from 1860 1879 until 1907) oethose that it occasionally built directly, or those whose promoters chose to surrender the workings to the GoI (and, in the cse of the guaranteed companies, received their capital back). From 1907, the word ''State'' was usually dropped from the name of railways owned by the in GoI . By late 1944, all the State Railways had been nationalisedownership.
*[[:Category:Assisted Railways|Assisted Railways of the Indian Princely States]] were integrated into those whose construction was assisted by the newly formed [[Indian Railways]] after Independence GoI, either by guaranteed return or subsidy or in 1947some other material way.
*[[:Category:Indian States Railways|Indian States Railways]] were those built or promoted, often on similar terms to those above, by the various Princely States.
*[[:Category:Foreign Railways|Foreign Railways]]. Three small railways were built to serve foreign enclaves. These were managed by British companies but the lines could never vest in the GoI. === Records ===
It is important to bear in mind that railway staff records created in India before 1947 remain in India, as do the records of railways built, owned or operated by the Indian Princely States. The records that survive today in the collections held at the British Library do so because they were originally created in the UK.
=== Recommended Reading ===
Hyde Clarke, [http://books.google.com/books?id=PGcBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=simla&as_brr=1&output=html ''Colonization, Defence, and Railways in our Indian Empire''] (London: John Weale, 1857).
=== External Links ===
[http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/ ''The Imperial Gazetteer of India : New edition . . . in Council''] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908-1931 [v. 1, 1909])
[http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r144.html Mike's Railway History] "Modern transport in India"
[[Category:Top level]]
