The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was a predecessor of the Central Railway, whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Mumbai. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company was incorporated on 1 August 1849 by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company Act 1849 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It had a share capital of 50,000 pounds. On 21 August 1847 it entered into a formal contract with the East India Company for the construction and operation of a railway line, 56 km long, to form part of a trunk line connecting Bombay with Khandesh and Berar and generally with the other presidencies of India. The Court of Directors of the East India Company appointed James John Berkeley as Chief Resident Engineer and Charles Buchanan Ker and Robert Wilfred Graham as his assistants. It was India's first passenger railway, the original 21 miles section opening in 1853, between Bombay and Tanna. On 1 July 1925 its management was taken over by the Government. On 5 November 1951 it was incorporated into the Central Railway.
Incorporation in London
Incorporated as a company in 1849, with its head office in London, the Great Indian Peninsula railway was initially proposed for a length of 1300 miles, to connect Bombay with the interior of the Indian peninsula and to Madras major port on the east coast. It was originally meant to connect the towns of Poona, Nassuek, Aurungabad, Ahmednuggur, Sholapoor, Nagpur, Oomrawutty, and Hyderabad. It was meant for the purpose of increasing the export of cotton, silk, opium, sugar and spices. The management committee consisted of 25 British men, including officials of the East India company and banks in London, most of whom resided in Britain and some who had resided in India. The original 25 person board consisted of: people such as John Stuart Wortley and W.J Hamilton, Frederick Ayrton, Cavalrymen such as Major Clayton and Major-General Briggs, Bombay residents John Graham, Col. Dickenson and Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, bankers such as John Harvey and S. Jervis, and Directors of other railway companies such as Richard Paterson and Melvil Wilson.
Railways around Bombay
On 16 April 1853 at 3:35 pm, the first passenger train of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway left Boree Bunder station in Bombay for Tanna. The train took fifty-seven minutes to reach Tanna. It covered a distance of 21 miles. Three locomotives named Sultan, Sindh and Sahib pulled the 14 carriages carrying 400 passengers on board. The portion of the line from Tanna to Callian was opened on 1 May 1854. The construction of this portion was difficult as it involved two-line viaducts over the estuary and two tunnels. On 12 May 1856 the line was extended to Campoolie via Padusdhurree and on 14 June 1858 Khandala-Poona section was opened to traffic. The Padusdhurree-Khandala section involved the difficult crossing of the Bhore Ghat and it took another five years for completion. During this period, the 21 km gap was covered by palanquin, pony or cart through the village of Campoolie. The Kassarah line was opened on 1 January 1861 and the steep Thull ghat section up to Egutpoora was opened on 1 January 1865 and thus completed the crossing of the Sahyadri.
Bombay to Madras
Beyond Callian, the south-east main line proceeded over Bhor Ghat to Poona, Sholapore and Raichore, where it joined the Madras Railway. By 1868, route kilometerage was 888 km and by 1870, route kilometerage was 2,388.
Beyond Callian, the north-east main line proceeded over the Thull ghat to Bhosawal. From Bhosawal, there was a bifurcation. One passed through great cotton district of Oomravuttee and was extended up to Nagpore and then to Raj-nandgaon in Drug district. The other was extended up to Jubbulpore to connect with the Allahabad-Jubbulpore branch line of the East Indian Railway which had been opened in June 1867. Hence it became possible to travel directly from Bombay to Calcutta. The Howrah-Allahabad-Mumbai line was officially opened on 7 March 1870 and it was part of the inspiration for French writer Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days. Although, in the novel it is erroneously claimed that the line passes through Aurangabad, which is, again erroneously claimed as the capital of the Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgeer. At that time period, line had not reached Aurangabad but rather moved northward after reaching Bhusawal towards Jabalpur. At the opening ceremony, the Viceroy Lord Mayo concluded that “it was thought desirable that, if possible, at the earliest possible moment, the whole country should be covered with a network of lines in a uniform system”.
