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Birthday wishes for Indian Railways! First passenger train ran 166 years ago; check cool facts

April 17, 2019, 10:16 AM
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Happy Birthday wishes to Indian Railways! April 16 is a very special day for Indian Railways as today, exactly 166 years ago, the very first passenger train ran from Bori Bunder (now Mumbai’s CSMT or Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) to Thane in Maharashtra. According to a tweet shared Ministry of Railways, on 16 April 1853, the 14-carriage train which was hauled by three engines namely, Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan, started from Mumbai’s CSMT with as many as 400 passengers. It is interesting to note that the passenger train was flagged off with a 21-gun salute. Since then, the national public transporter, which is also one of the largest employers of the world, has been serving the country by carrying more than 2.3 crore railway passengers across all zones per day. Even though trains started running much before the year 1853 in India, this was the first time that a passenger train ran on the tracks of the Indian Railways network.

In the year 1861, Bombay, Baroda and Central India (BBCI) Railway opened Churchgate railway station as its new railway terminus for Bombay (now Mumbai). In the year 1864, the oldest railway station of Delhi which is Delhi Junction railway station was established near Chandni Chowk, starting the train service between Delhi and Calcutta (now Kolkata). In the year 1965, Indian Railways introduced the fast freight services across many routes, especially those connecting the four main metropolitan cities and other important cities like Ahmedabad, Bangalore etc.

Meanwhile on February 3, Indian Railways observes another historic day. Central Railways, one of the national zonal railways headquartered in Mumbai at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, had completed 94 years of EMU (electric multiple unit) train service. According to a recent press release shared by Central Railways, it was on February 3, 1925 that the first EMU train service with four cars was flagged off by Sir Leslie Wilson, who was the then Governor of Mumbai. The first service ran from the then Bombay Victoria Terminus/VT to Kurla on the harbour line.

Source – Financial Express

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This entry was posted in 1 Rail News, Historical - Railway, General