Great Indian Peninsula Railway

Great Indian Peninsula Railway
Overview
HeadquartersBombay, British India
LocaleBritish India
Dates of operation1 August 1849–5 November 1951
Technical
Track gauge5'6" or 1676 mm
Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company Act 1849
Long titleAn Act to incorporate the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, and for purposes connected therewith.
Citation12 & 13 Vict. c. 83
Territorial extent British Raj
Dates
Royal assent1 August 1849
Status: Unknown
Text of statute as originally enacted
Extent of Great Indian Peninsula Railway network in 1870

The Great Indian Peninsula Railway (reporting mark GIPR) was a predecessor of the Central Railway (and by extension, the current state-owned Indian Railways), whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Mumbai (later, the Victoria Terminus and presently the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus). The Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company was incorporated on 1 August 1849 by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company Act 1849 (12 & 13 Vict. c.83) 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.[1] The Court of Directors of the East India Company appointed James John Berkeley[2] as Chief Resident Engineer and Charles Buchanan Ker and Robert Wilfred Graham as his assistants.[3] It was India's first passenger railway, the original 21 miles (33.8 km) section opening in 1853, between Bombay (Mumbai) and Tanna (now Thane). On 1 July 1925, its management was taken over by the Government.[4] On 5 November 1951, it was incorporated into the Central Railway.

  1. ^ Rao, M.A. (1988). Indian Railways, New Delhi: National Book Trust, p. 15.
  2. ^ Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1863. p. 690.
  3. ^ Khan, Shaheed (18 April 2002). "The great Indian Railway bazaar". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 16 July 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. ^ "About Indian Railways-Evolution". Ministry of Railways website. Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 9 October 2014.