Upper India Railway

The Upper India Railway Company was formed in London in 1852 for ‘the purpose of introducing railways into Upper India.’ The following announcement was made in the Morning Chronicle 11 Sept 1852  :-

The first section, about 130 miles(208km) will commence at Allahabad, at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, and will terminate at Cawnpore. Allahabad is a city of great importance, and one of the principal civil and military stations, and Cawnpore is the largest military station in India.

The full announcement is given at end of this article.

The Government Records show that a new company, the ‘Upper India Railway Company’, had undertaken to construct the railway to Delhi and the work to commence, as decided in 1852, in different parts and operations would start before the completion of the whole line. This was a joint undertaking with the ‘East India Railway Company’ and the ‘Upper India Railway Company’, formed in 1852 specifically to construct the line from Allahabad to Cawnpore.

The biography ‘Robert Stephenson - The Eminent Engineer’ states:-

“Robert Stephenson was approached to represent the ‘Upper India Railway Company’ in 1852 to persue a 400 mile route between Delhi and Allahabad. He passed this on to John Bidder, who represented the railway company jointly with Michael Borthwick, but the scheme did not proceed.” . Robert Stephenson was London based Consultant to Great Indian Peninsula Railway , neither John Bidder and Michael Borthwick are recorded as having any connections with the Indian Railways

The railway between Allahabad and Cawnpore , 119½ miles (192km) opened in March 1859 .
When fully opened in 1867 between Howrah (facing Calcutta) and Delhi
It became the ‘EIR Main Line’ - see separate page

No further record has been found concerning the ‘Upper India Railway Company’,
The ‘East India Railway Company’ constructed and operated the railway as the initial part of its network.

Full Announcement

The following was stated in the ‘Morning Chronicle ‘ on Saturday 11 September 1852

THE UPPER INDIA RAILWAY COMPANY.- A company under this title has been formed in London for the purpose of introducing railways into Upper India. The first section, about 130 miles in length, will commence at Allahabad, at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, and will terminate at Cawnpore. Allahabad is a city of great importance, and one of the principal civil and military stations, and Cawnpore is the largest military station in India.

It is stated that there is both by steamers and country craft a continuous permanent water communication between Calcutta and Allahabad. The yearly tonnage of the Lower Ganges is 1,600,000 by the country craft alone; the number of passengers is also very great. Deep water ceases at Allahabad, and, consequently, it is at this important city that the real difficulty and expense of transit begin. Above Allahabad, notwithstanding the defective river navigation, and the rude and expensive land carriage, which costs from 4d. to 8d. per ton per mile, moving at the slow rate of ten miles in twenty-four hours, there is an officially ascertained traffic of above 1,000,000 tons, and a land passenger traffic by various conveyances, exceeding 100,000 per annum, besides passengers by boats, and about 300,000 travellers on foot.

This certainly seems to promise employment for a railway; and if it is correct, as is stated in a report made by Major J. P. Kennedy, late director of the railway department in India, to the Government, that "between Allahabad and Delhi there is no engineering question of difficulty whatever, as the beautiful flat bed (extending for several hundred miles in the direction of the line, in the Dooab, between the rivers Ganges and Jumna), with its numerous commercial towns, offers, perhaps, the most singularly inviting district for laying down a railway that can be found in the world; free as it is from inundation, from hills, from river-crossings, and road-crossings, in short, from any impediment, and almost every ordinary source of expenditure in railway construction," the projected enterprise, if conducted with ordinary care and judgment, cannot but be profitable to the shareholders. The capital to be raised is £1,000,000, in 60,000 shares of £20 each, with power of increase as it may be required for the construction of future sections.