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'''Madras Port Trust Railways'''
Privately owned railway and marshalling yard constructed during the 1920early 1900's and still operational today.The port railway Port Railway linked to the mainline.<refname=Port>[http://www.chennaiport.gov.in/abt_portprofile.html Chennai Port Gov. "Chennai Port"]; Retrieved 12 Dec 201529 May 2017</ref>
The first port facility in [[Madras]] was a 1,100 foot(335 mtr) iron pier , perpendicular to the shore, constructed from 1861. The first railway equipment known to have been used was a 6 ton railway crane in 1877. The ‘Madras Port Trust’ was constituted in 1881 to take over the running of the site. This pier was breached during a cyclone in 1881 and reconstructed started in 1885. In 1904 a new north-eastern entrance was constructed after the original eastern entrance was closed <ref name =TN03>“Industrial Railways and Locomotives of India and South Asia” compiled by Simon Darvill. Published by ‘The Industrial Railway Society’ 2013. ISBN 978 1 901556 82-7. Available at http://irsshop.co.uk/India. Reference: Entry TN03 page ....</ref>.
*’Export Jetty Tramway’. In 1905 a 2ft/610mm narrow gauge([[Rail_gauge#Narrow_Gauge|NG]]) hand-worked tramway was laid for the movement of export cargo <ref name =TN03/>.
In 1904 the Port Railway system had 2½ miles (4km) of track, with two locomotives, increasing to 9 locomoties by 1909. By 1914 this had increased to 14½ miles(23km). By 1955 the system had 19.35 miles(31km) of mixed gauge line of which 3.85 miles(6km) carried passenger services connecting to the steamer services from the Port <ref name =TN03/>.
The quays were served by a network of Port railways, both broad gauge([[Rail_gauge#Broad_Gauge|BG]] and metre gauge([[Rail_gauge_#Metre_Gauge|MG]]) which connected to the mainline networks <ref name=Port/> :-
* [[Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway]](M&SMR) broad gauge([[Rail_gauge#Broad_Gauge|BG]] at Royapuram Siding linking to the ‘North-East Mainline’ to Calcutta and New Delhi etc., and ‘South-West Mainline’ to Bangalore, Coimbatore etc
*[[South Indian Railway]](SIR) metre gauge([[Rail_gauge_#Metre_Gauge|MG]]) at Madras Beach Station on the ‘Madras-Vilupuram Section’ to connect Chennai Port to Southern parts of Tamil Nadu
The Port is linked to Southern Railway network via Chennai Beach Railway Siding which connects Chennai Port to Southern parts of Tamil Nadu and via Royapuram Siding which connects Southern Railway Trunk line to Kolkata, New Delhi, Bangalore, Coimbatore etc
New quays were built:- South Quay I in 1913; five West Quays between 1916 and 1920; North quay in 1931 and South Quay II in 1936 <ref name =TN03/> .
Today named the ‘Chennai Port’ it has a Terminal Shunting Yard and runs its own Railway operations inside the harbour. The Port is having railway lines running up to 68 kms.
== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Railways]]
[[Category:Port Railways]]
[[Category:Tramways]]
[[Category:Industrial Railways]]
