165 Yrs Later, Here’s a Look Back at India’s First Passenger Train

The first passenger train ran from Bori Bunder (CST) to Tannah (Thane) on 16 April, 1853.

India’s first passenger train was flagged off on 16 April, 165 years ago.

An estimated 400 people took the inaugural journey from Bori Bunder (now CST) to Tannah (now Thane). Merchant Sir Jamserjee Jeejeebhoy and then governor’s wife Lady Falkland joined the other passengers – people from various ranks of British and Indian aristocracy – who filled the 14 carriages.

An article in India Today reports that the train, which ran on three locomotives, imaginatively referred to as Sahib, Sindh and Sultan, left the station at exactly 3.30 pm, amid a 21-gun salute.

Travel writers Anurag Mallick and Priya Ganapathy retrace the route in a blogpost as follows:

The 21-mile long journey to Tannah (Thane), was completed in approximately one hour and fifteen minutes.

After leaving Bori Bunder, the train first stopped at Bycullah and then later for fifteen minutes at Sion, to fill water into the engines. The current CST-Thane train follows the same route.

A newspaper report of the time described the journey as follows:

The natives salaamed the omnipotence of the steam engine as it passed. The railway is a triumph, to which, in comparison, all our victories in the East seem tame and commonplace. The opening of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway will be remembered by the natives of India when the battlefields of Plassey, Assaye, Meanee and Goojerat have become landmarks of history.

A report in The Overland Telegraph and Courier 

The success of India’s first passenger train, as it reached Tannah (Thane) a little over an hour after it was flagged off from Bori Bunder (CST), made way for the rise of Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and East Indian Railway (EIR). Following the journey, the period between 1853-1854 saw the establishment of two companies which pioneered the railway construction in the country.

While history remembers 1853 as the year when the Indian Railways was formally launched, the British began to experiment in this sector in 1836 – when the first (British) Indian rail line came up near Chintadripet Bridge, near Chennai, reports India Today.

November 1852 also saw a trial run along the same route of Bori Bunder (CST) to Tannah (Thane). But since it was done with a shunting locomotive instead of a rail engine, it is 1853 that will be remembered as the start of the golden era of the Indian railways.