Trevredyn Rashleigh Wynne

Trevredyn Rashleigh Wynne Sir (1853-1942)

Trained at the Royal Indian Engineering College (R.I.E.) at Coopers Hill in Surrey, UK and was one of the fifty engineers of 1874 batch appointed by the Public Works Department of India.

Railway Achievements

• 1874; Rajputana State Railway, posted as an Assistant Engineer.
• 1877; Dhond-Manmad State Railway .
• 1879; Kathiawar State Railway, promoted to Executive Engineer
• 1883; Bengal and North-Western Railway for short period
• c.1884 Sind-Sagar Railway for short period
• 1886; Government of India for the Guaranteed Railways, Deputy Consulting Engineer
• 1887; Bengal-Nagpur Railway(BNR), as its first Agent and Chief Engineer on formation to take over the then existing Nagpur Chhattisgarh Railway (149 miles), convert it to broad gauge and extend the system to join the East Indian Railway (EIR) at Asansol and also to construct a branch 161 mile long northwards from Bilaspur to Umaria coal-fields and thus connect Katni, a station on the Jabalpur branch of the East Indian Railway. The allotted task for the young Wynne was stupendous by all records. By then Wynne was in early thirties and had been on job for only thirteen years. BNR was not a fore-runner on the Indian Railway scene. It was a generation younger than the leaders viz., the EIR and the GIPR Railways. Though a latecomer, it captured the lost ground fast and in a couple of years, it was a major railway system competing with the premiers.
• 1905 He remained Agent of BNR until 1905 save for a long furlough from June 1902 to November 1903 when he was engaged in China as in charge of an Engineering and Mining Company.
• 1905 Railway Board appointed a Member of the Railway Board on its formation.
• 1908 Railway Board appointed President on the retirement of Sir F. R. Upcott
• 1909 Awarded Knight Commander of the most eminent order of the Indian Empire
• 1911 Awarded wed by Knight Commander of the most exalted order of the Star of India
• 1913 Sir T. R. Wynne, KCSI, KCIE, VD, MICE could not remain idle for long. After his retirement from the Railway Board he joined the BNR Company as its Managing Director and remained on that position from 1915 to 1930. Again not to retire but to become its Chairman and be on the top position for a period of 5 years. This is thus the story of a railwayman who spent 61 years of his life in active service of railways.