What is the history of passenger stock and accommodations?

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What is the history of passenger stock and accommodations?

June 22, 2019, 11:49 AM

As railway operations in India were handled by a large number of companies at first, there was a lot of variety in the kinds of stock used and the classes of accommodation provided. Larger railways tended to have three or four classes of accommodation, from First through Fourth (and many special-purpose luxury saloons and the like in addition).

Many smaller lines started with a simple division of Upper and Lower class (e.g., Bengal and Northwestern Rly. (MG) and the Barsi Light Rly. (NG)) — this economized on rolling stock, especially if (as was often the case), classes other than First and Third were not well patronized. At the 1870 Railway Conference, there were even suggestions to have just a single class of carriage as with the practice then in the USA, however, it was felt necessary to have at least two, perhaps more, classes to accommodate social distinctions.

ये भी पढ़े – अफगानिस्‍तान में कमजोर पड़ता तालिबानी दुर्ग, जानें- इसका क्‍या है भारत-पाक फैक्‍टर

From 1874 onwards most large and medium railways standardized on roughly the same levels of accommodations for each of the three classes First through Third. Fourth class carriages were essentially like box cars as they did not have any seats, not even benches. Although most railways had them at some time or the other in the 1860s, they were already going out of favour by the 1870s so that by the early 1880s not many lines had Fourth class.

In 1885 Fourth class was generally abolished by the expedient of providing benches in the carriages, and reclassifying the carriages as Third class. The existing Third class was then renamed the ‘Inter’ class (for Intermediate). Inter class was seen as providing an economical form of travel for those Indians who were better off than the poorer majority who could only afford the lowest class of accommodations, and where they would not be bothered by the ‘low-class’ travellers (Indians or Europeans) travelling in Third class. First class and Second class were generally the domain of Europeans, although very wealthy Indians did occasionally travel in First class.

From about the 1930s, Inter and Second began to be provided only in Composite carriages, reflecting a very low demand for the service. Some lines began to phase out Inter altogether, though this process was far from complete by 1947. In 1955, there was another reclassification, and the Second class became First class, and the Inter class became Second class. (Third remained Third.)

The old super-luxurious First class coaches survived but were phased out over time. These pre-1955 First class coaches were non-corridor coaches, so the compartment ran the full width of the car. They had one 6-berth compartment, two 2-berth compartments, and three 4-berth compartments. Each compartment had an attached shower and lavatory. These coaches usually also had one narrow compartment at one end with a bench and sometimes a single berth above, for the travellers’ domestic servants; this was used as the compartment for cabin attendants later. Such coaches with these ‘servant quarters’ were built as late as 1940. Some First class coaches were composites. They all had timber bodies, on a 68-foot underframe.

1955 was the year that the ICF was established, and began producing the integral coaches on the 70-foot body. (Interestingly, the prototype ICF coach actually had an Inter compartment.) The post-1955 First class coaches are the corridor type which survive today. Some of the old wooden-bodied non-corridor First class coaches were still running even as late as 1987 on MG, and some of the old composite First class coaches until 1980 on BG. Non-composite pre-1955 First class coaches were seen in some sections in the 1970s. In some ways, the successor of the old luxurious First class is today’s air-conditioned First class.

Second (ex-Inter) class was officially abolished on 1st July 1974, and the remaining Second Class compartments were redesignated Third class, so that for a short while there were only First and Third classes. But Third class was then renamed Second cass not too long after.

Wooden seats and berths were the most common until the 1970s in Second and Third classes. Cushioned sleeping berths and seats began appearing in the late 1970s. The variations on air-conditioned accommodations, and different kinds of chair-cars were introduced in recent years.

The older non-airconditioned First Class coaches are gradually being phased out and no new coaches of this kind are being manufactured now [4/00]. They had much more spacious and well-appointed seating and sleeping accommodations than the Second Class coaches. Seating capacity 28 per coach. Until about the 1980’s, there was still much old stock in use from the 1940’s and 1950’s where coaches were configured as non-corridor first class coaches, giving a measure of privacy and spaciousness not seen today.

Composite coaches (first class / 1AC) survived on MG for quite a while, and all first-class coaches are still seen quite often on MG; these usually also had coupe and 4-berth compartments in addition to the more standard 6-berth compartments.

There also used to be a few combined first-class / second-class coaches where half the coach was first-class, separated from the rest by a door in the aisle, with 32 berths for the second-class section. Only a few of the old first-class coaches have been retrofitted with air-brakes for use in air-braked rakes employed by the fast trains today, and so only a few trains such as the Nilgiri, Pandyan, and Kanyakumari Expresses have these coaches now.

Source – IFRCA.org

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