Thread by @thekaipullai

Funny story regarding electrification of Indian Railways.

The first electric train ran in 1925, From CST (VT then) to Kurla, via the Harbour line.

Now because it was 1925, the state of the art technology for electric locomotion was 1500 V DC.

So the British used it

Thanks to the Edison vs Tesla memes, You know how sad DC is, as it can't be transmitted over long distances and needs sub stations every 5 kms.

But the Brits went with it and electrified sections till Igatpuri and Pune on the Central Railway.

Then India became independent.

So when we were deciding what form of Electricity was to be used for electrifying Railways in 1957, the French had perfected the 25kv AC for locomotion.

It was more powerful and helped in high speeds. And the French promised us Locomotives and support.

So we went with it.

Rest of India started getting AC, except one enclave. The Central Railway.

That still ran on DC.

The Locomotives used on CR couldn't be used anywhere else and vice versa. To circumvent that, we had to develop multipurpose engines, just to run on central Railway.

Any Train coming in with a 25kv Engine, had to change, which necessitated long engine change stopovers in Pune and Igatpuri.

And you when this was Fixed

2016

We took 90 years to fix this simple issue

For 90 years, India had 2, mutually incompatible electric systems for trains

90 years, we lived with a totally apathetic government because they couldn't care less to fix this..