Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

From Allahabad the East Indian Railway extends through Cawnpore to the heart of the upper Provinces, and at Ghazecabad it meets the Punjaub Railway, whence it is carried to the Great City of Delhi.

At Allahabad it branches off to Jubbulpore, where the line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway is to come from Bombay to meet it. The gap to be filled up is 225 miles, and according to the interesting and instructive report of Mr. Juland Danvers, the Government Director of the Indian Railway Companies, issued in May last, it is fully expected that this gap will be completed for traffic, notwithstanding the difficult and costly character of several of the works upon it, by October or November of next year. Then railway transit from Bombay to Calcutta will be accomplished in forty-four hours;[86] and it is not too much to hope that in two, at all events three years, the present contract time of mails from London to Calcutta, viâ Marseilles, will be reduced from 34 days to 23½ days. If the speed of the steamers which are to carry the Mails between Brindisi and Alexandria were to be twelve knots an hour, and not ten as specified in the invitations for tenders sent out by the Post Office, at the early part of the present year, and the speed of the steamers between Suez and the port of Bombay were increased from 9½ to 10½ knots an hour, a further acceleration of nearly two days to Calcutta would be gained, thereby reducing the time to 21½ days, or 2½ days less than the present contract time between London and Bombay, viâ Marseilles. Two to three hours would also be gained by the construction of a great bridge over the Hooghly, thereby extending the East Indian Railway, from its present terminus at Howrah, into Calcutta. Such a work is stated by Mr. Juland Danvers to be, “in the opinion of those best able to judge, imperatively required, in the interests both of the railway company and of the public.” No decision, however, has as yet been come to with reference to its construction being commenced at an early period.

The average cost of the upper portion of the East Indian Railway has been about £15,000 a mile. The lower, or Bengal portion, has been, at least, half as much again. It is expected that the Jubbulpore extension will come to £15,000 a mile, including rolling stock and maintenance of the line and works for a year after opening. The gross traffic earnings[87] during 1866 were £2,012,680, showing an increase of £338,239 as compared with 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865 were 7s. 9d., in 1866, 8s. The expenditure per train mile in 1865 was 3s. 8d., in 1866 a farthing a mile less. The train mileage in the year ending 30th June, 1866, was 4,625,705 miles.[88]

The Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company was incorporated in 1849. It is to be the great line which is to unite Bombay with Madras, and also with Calcutta. From Bombay to Callian may be considered the parent line, as it is at this point it becomes divided, one branch going south-east in the direction towards Madras, and the other north-east towards Calcutta. The south-eastern branch is carried over the Bhore Ghaut by an incline nearly sixteen miles long, with a total elevation of 1,381 feet. The foot of the mountain is 196 feet above high water mark at Bombay. Its average gradient is 1 in 48. The steepest gradients are 1 in 37 and 1 in 40, for a total length of 9 miles and 44 chains; 1 in 37 extends in one length for 1 mile 10 chains, and 1 in 40 for 5 miles 6 chains. Short lengths of level gradients and of 1 in 330 are introduced into this incline to facilitate the ascent of the engine. The radii of the curves upon it range from 15 chains to 80 chains; but as much as 12 miles 45 chains have a radius of more than 30 chains, and 5 miles 33 chains are straight. It comprises twenty-five tunnels of a total length of 3,585 yards. The longest is 437 yards; and the longest without a shaft, which is carried through a mountain of basalt, is 346 yards. There are eight viaducts of a total length of 987 yards. The two largest are 168 yards long, and respectively 163 and 160 feet above the foundations. The total quantity of cutting, chiefly rock, amounts to 1,263,102 cubic yards. The maximum depth of cutting is 70 feet, and the greatest contents 75,000 cubic yards of trap rock. The embankments amount to 1,849,934 cubic yards, the maximum height being 74 feet; and the greatest contents are 209,000 and 263,000 cubic yards. The slopes average about 1½ to 1. There are twenty-three bridges of various spans, from 7 feet to 30 feet, and sixty culverts from 2 feet to 6 feet wide. The rails weigh 85 lbs. per yard. The cost of the incline has been nearly £800,000; at one time there were no less than 42,000 men (natives of India) employed upon its construction.

At the eleventh mile the incline is divided into two banks by what is called a reversing station. This subdivision, however, was not adopted for the purpose of making two banks of the incline, but of increasing the length of the base, in order to flatten the gradient and to reach a higher level, where it encountered the great features of the Ghaut margin, near Khandalla. Without the necessary expedient of the reversing station, the practicability of changing the direction of the line would have been confined to making curves of small radius; but with the device of the reversing station the direction was altered at a very acute angle, by means of points and crossings. In consequence of its adoption, the length of the line has necessarily been considerably extended.

The Bhore Ghaut is unquestionably a stupendous mass of works, unsurpassed by any others in the world; and probably the nearest rivals to them in magnitude and grandeur are those of the Thull Ghaut.

This incline extends from the village of Kussarah to Egutpoora. It is 9½ miles in length, and has a total ascent of 972 feet. At the end of 3¾ miles there is a reversing station, similar to that upon the Bhore Ghaut Incline, by which the base is lengthened, the gradient flattened, and the incline divided into two banks. The steepest gradient is 1 in 37, for a length of 4 miles 30 chains; and the same introduction of a level portion is adopted here as on the Bhore Ghaut. The radius of the curves ranges from 17 chains to 100 chains; but of 7 miles 12 chains the radius exceeds 30 chains, and 3 miles 28 chains are straight. There are thirteen tunnels of a total length of 2,652 yards. The longest are, one of 474 yards in black basalt with two shafts, and another of 483 yards without a shaft, in green-stone. There are six viaducts, of a total length of 741 yards, the largest of which are respectively 144 yards and 250 yards long and 83 feet and 182 feet high. The latter is of three spans with triangular iron girders measuring 150 feet, with a pair of semi-circular abutment arches measuring 40 feet at each end. There are fifteen bridges of which the span varies from 7 feet to 30 feet, and sixty-two culverts. The cost of the incline is about £500,000.

The Thull overcome, a branch line, runs south-eastward through the great cotton district of Oomrawattee to Nagpore, but the main line continues its course eastward to Jubbulpore, where it meets the East India Railway which comes to join it from Calcutta. From Bombay to Jubbulpore the distance is 615 miles, and from Bombay to Raichore, the point of junction with the Madras Railway, the distance is 441 miles. As soon as the whole system of the East Indian Peninsular Railway is completed it will consist of 1,267 miles.

Its train mileage in the year ending the 30th June, 1866, was 2,259,881 miles. The gross receipts for the year ending the 31st December were £1,252,962, showing an increase of £77,872 over 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865, were 10s. 5d.; in 1866, 10s. 11d. The expenditure per train mile in 1865, was 6s. 2d.; in 1866, 6s. 4½d. For the half-year ending the 30th of June, 1867, the net receipts amounted to £530,568, being at the rate of £6. 9s. per cent. per annum on the whole of the paid-up capital of the company. As the guaranteed interest of the half-year advanced by the Government amounted to £398,452, the surplus profit was £132,116; but, in consequence of the accidents that had occurred to the works, it has been decided by the shareholders that no more than at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, shall be divided among them for the present. The Great Indian Peninsular Railway must always be liable to heavy cost, and occasional interruptions to its traffic, in consequence of several of the districts through which it passes being subjected to severe and sudden floods. At Bombay, the annual rainfall is about 85 inches (more than three and a-half times the rainfall of London), and although at other places on the line it is considerably less, it is nevertheless as high as 255 inches at Matheran, and as high as 265 inches at Mohableshwar. It may be that the works on the railway, as a whole, have not been constructed sufficiently with a view to this fact, but, from whatever cause proceeding, several serious disasters to viaducts and bridges have recently taken place; and, we regret to perceive, by a minute of the Governor-General in Council, that these disasters are attributed to original defective construction. It also appears, by the latest reports from India, that as many as seventeen bridges on the unopened portions of the Nagpore Extension have been condemned by the company’s engineers. But might not this fact have been avoided if they had done their duty in the first instance?