Initially, the locomotives of those times were imported.

. . . Much of what went into India’s railways: locomotives, equipment, steel for bridges and structures, rails, and sleepers, were almost entirely sourced from outside the country. While over time, some of the simpler items of these—sleepers, bolts et cetera began to be indigenously manufactured, the more technology-intensive in this list, locomotives for instance, continued to be imported chiefly from Great Britain. Attempts at locomotive production domestically, in the initial years, were thwarted or at least inhibited, by the adoption of ‘standard types’ of locomotives, which meant that special sanction was needed to build ‘non-standard’ locomotives. However, there were some definite spin-offs—railway technology requires extensive facilities for repair and maintenance, almost at the same scale as for manufacture. Therefore, quite early on, India’s railway network saw the fairly extensive development of workshops, sheds and shops for repair and maintenance of rolling stock. (Introduction in Roopa Srinivasan, Manish Tiwari and Sandeep Silas edited, Our Indian Railway, Themes in India’s Railway History, Foundation Books, 2006)

Between 1853 and 1947, 14,400 locomotives were imported from Great Britain, and around 3000 locomotives from other countries. Between 1865 and 1941, India produced 700 locomotives. This brings us to Jamalpur. The Jamalpur Railway Workshop was established in 1860. It is impossible to overlook Jamalpur when it comes to the history of Indian Railways. This was where the EIRC [East Indian Railway Company] established its first railway workshop, in 1862.

Why was Jamalpur, adjacent to Munghyr (Munger) chosen? For years, even centuries, Munger had been a centre for the manufacture of guns— not only legal weapons, but also guns of the illegal and cottage variety. That’s a standard reason given for the choice of Munger—its tradition of making guns, pistols, spears and other ironware. Another reason advanced was that a railway line being attempted between Howrah and Delhi might pass through Munger/Jamalpur. But a shorter line (the Grand Chord or main line) developed via Gaya/Mughal Sarai and the entire so-called Sahibganj Loop, including Munger/Jamalpur, became relatively neglected.

Munger/Jamalpur were on the longer Sahibganj Loop and when the decision about Jamalpur was taken, the construction of the Grand Chord had not been anticipated. No doubt, each of these reasons contains some element of truth, but there is another story too. Most of the employees in the railway workshop then were English. They preferred hotels, restaurants and billiard-rooms to the Howrah workshop, and so long as the workshop was in Howrah, they were found more in these places of entertainment than in the workshop, even during working hours. Hence the workshop was shifted from Howrah to Jamalpur, more than 450 km away.

Rudyard Kipling visited Jamalpur in 1888 and wrote three pieces (not very charitable) on his visit in the Pioneer. They were published under the series ‘Among the Railway Folk’. His descriptions also covered the workshop:

Walk into a huge, brick-built, tin-roofed stable, capable of holding twenty-four locomotives under treatment, and see what must be done to the Iron Horse, once every three years if he is to do his work well. On reflection, Iron Horse is wrong. An engine is a she—as distinctly feminine as a ship or a mine.

As the examples of the Express and the Fairy Queen indicate, locomotives weren’t initially given names. They were only distinguished by numbers, whether they were imported or domestically manufactured, as they subsequently were. Eventually, names began to be used, mostly the names of British bureaucrats or railway engineers—Lord Irwin, Lord Reading, Lord Elgin, Lord Harding, Lord Minto.

The sole exception at the time was a locomotive named after Ramgotty Mukherjee, the last general manager of the Nalhati–Azimganj light railway (more on it later in the book). Almost certainly, this was the first locomotive named after an Indian, and it was built in 1862 by Anjubault, the French manufacturer.

Vidya Krishnamurthi

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