India and Indian Engineering. / Three lectures delivered at the Royal Engineer Institute, Chatham, in July 1872

by J. G. Medley

So much, then, for bridges. I now turn to the very important subject of [Roads]. Great progress has been made within the last twenty years in providing India with roads, but thousands of miles are still wanted before the road system can be considered anything like complete. The cost of carriage in many parts of the country is still enormous, owing to the wretched state of the unmetalled tracks, and whole districts may be starving while plenty reigns in those adjoining, owing to the same cause. However, these are questions with which the young engineer at least has seldom anything to do; his work begins when the construction of the road is decided upon. The rules regarding the laying out and construction of roads are of course the same in India as in other countries. I will only dwell on characteristic specialities. Of the construction of the earthwork I spoke in my last lecture. The Metalling employed is kunkur, already described, and various kinds of stone used in macadamizing in the ordinary way. Heavy iron or stone rollers, drawn by bullocks, are usually employed, but steam road-rollers have lately been introduced in Calcutta, Bombay, and even the wilds of the Central Provinces.

The Grand Trunk Road[B] runs from Calcutta to Peshawur, a distance of 1600 miles, passing through the Rajmehal hills by some very heavy works, then on to Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Delhi, thence to Umballa, and Lahore, and Jhelum, by massive embankments; thence for the last 160 miles to Peshawur it is carried by some of the heaviest and most difficult works in the world. The designer and constructor of the whole line was Lieut. (now Colonel) A. Taylor, R.E., C.B., director of the attack at the siege of Delhi.

The Hindostan and Thibet road is another fine work which you will find described in the books. It is carried right through the hills from Kalka at the foot, viâ Simla, up the valley of the Sutlej, and is about 300 miles long; but only the first 60 miles are open for wheeled traffic. Sometimes it is carried but little above the level of the river, then it ascends a hill-side by a series of steep zigzags, then it goes boldly through a rock by a heavy cutting or short tunnel, then through a magnificent forest of deodars, then by the side of a vertically scarped hill, 2000 feet down, in which the road is either blasted out of the solid rock or supported by iron bearers let into the rock, and carrying a timbered floor. Probably no road in the world offers such fine scenery to the traveller. The officer who did most of the work on this road was Major Lang, R.E., my locum tenens at Roorkee. Before leaving the subject of roads, I may draw your attention to two or three instruments used in tracing hill roads, which you will find described in the ‘Treatise’—the Madras Clinometer, and De Lisle’s Clinometer.

It was in 1849, I think, that the first short experimental line of [Railway] was opened in India, between Bombay and Tanna, and soon afterwards the then Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, issued his famous memorandum laying down the principles which were to be adopted in the construction of the great imperial lines. That great statesman had been President of the Board of Trade, under Sir Robert Peel, during the time of the English railway mania, and had been an eye-witness of the reckless manner in which money had been squandered by the system, or rather no-system, which had characterized the construction of the English lines. From that at least his famous minute preserved India. It prescribed the chief lines to be laid down, the gauge to be observed, and various other points essential to prevent the public from paying for the rivalry of competing interests. The money was chiefly raised in England by the various companies, but the Government guaranteed a minimum dividend of 5 per cent. per annum to the shareholders, in return for which it was to exercise a complete control over the work, through its own consulting engineers. This divided responsibility doubtless had great disadvantages, and it has since been thought preferable for the Government to borrow the money itself, and to undertake the construction of the lines through the P. W. Dept.; but at that time Government was not in a position to undertake the work, and the money subscribed to make railways could not of course be diverted to any other purpose, as would probably have been the case in the event of war, had Government borrowed the money itself. At any rate, the main lines have been constructed, though doubtless at a higher cost than was anticipated, and their opening has been attended with incalculable advantage to India, both in a military and political, as well as a commercial, point of view.

The East Indian Railway runs from Calcutta up the valley of the Ganges, by the great cities of Burdwan and Patna, near Benares, to Cawnpore, Mirzapore, and Allahabad, and thence to Allyghur and Delhi, a distance of 1040 miles. Agra is served by a branch line from the Toondla junction. There is also a branch line, 220 miles long, from Allahabad to Jubbulpore, where it joins the Great Indian Peninsula line from Bombay, a distance of 600 miles. The Eastern Bengal line runs for 120 miles from Calcutta to Kooshtea, whence it is now being continued towards Assam. Another line runs from Bombay across India to Madras, whence a line runs down the coast to Trichinopoly. From Delhi the main line proceeds to Saharunpore, Umballa, and Loodiana, to Lahore, a distance of 330 miles, whence a line of 210 miles runs down to Moultan. There is also a branch line, 50 miles long, from Cawnpore to Lucknow, and a few others with which I need not trouble you.

The new lines now being projected, and to be constructed by the Government itself, are the line from Lahore to Peshawur, 265 miles, one from Moultan to Kotree, down the valley of the Indus, 600 miles; one from Agra, through Rajpootana, to Indore; and another from Delhi. It has been resolved to adopt a mètre gauge for these lines, and to construct them with the severest regard to economy, and the Government engineers, military and civil, have doubtless a fine field before them.

To return to the lines already opened; they comprise some of the finest engineering works in the world. On the East Indian line, are the great iron bridges over the Jumna at Allahabad, and those over the Tonse and Soane, besides very heavy embankments and severe rock cuttings in the new chord line through the Rajmehal hills. On the Lahore and Delhi line, are the heavy embankments between the Jumna and Sutlej, and the bridging of the Jumna, Sutlej, Beas, and Markunda rivers. The continuation of this line towards Peshawur by the Government engineers will involve works of great difficulty and magnitude in the rocky country between the Jhelum and Indus, and the bridging of those two rivers, besides the Ranee and the Chenab. The passage of the last river alone will task the highest engineering skill, as that of the Sutlej has already, and for the same reasons,—the exceedingly capricious character of the stream, the sandy nature of the bed and banks, and the enormous quantities of silt brought down by the waters.

On the Great Indian Peninsula line are works of at least equal magnitude, though of a different kind, foremost among which stand the great inclines of the Bhore and Thull Ghats, by which the railway ascends the steep barrier of the Western Ghats by a series of zigzags, inclines, curves, and tunnels, which render those works unequalled in the world. On the Thull Ghat, for five continuous miles there is a grade of 1 in 37, in which occur many severe curves; while the Bhore Ghat incline is 19 miles long, and in that distance has no less than thirty tunnels.

The Rails on all these lines are of the usual double-headed pattern, weighing from 66 to 90 lbs. per lineal yard, and laid generally in chairs on transverse wooden sleepers. These sleepers are either of one or other of the woods that I have already described, sometimes kyanized or burnettized; but large numbers of creosoted fir sleepers have also been imported from Europe, and a certain number from Australia. The Punjab line is almost entirely laid on Greaves’s patent Pot sleepers, with which doubtless you are acquainted. The advantage of such a roadway is of course the indestructibility of its material (iron); its disadvantage, that the cast-iron sleepers are apt to get broken, and that the rigidity of the roadway is bad for the rolling-stock at high speeds. But there is no doubt that the life of a timber sleeper in India is very short, and that it is very expensive to renew them; and a good wrought-iron permanent way, that shall not be absolutely ruinous in first cost, is still a desideratum.

The Locomotives employed on the Northern lines more nearly resemble those in America than in England, as they have to burn wood instead of coal. A huge spark-catcher is hoisted over the chimney, as serious accidents at one time were common from the blazing sparks of wood out of the uncovered funnel; and a cow-catcher is placed just in front of the smoke-box, to take up stray cows or buffaloes, who will get on to the line in spite of the fencing. The engine-drivers are all Europeans, I think, at present.