#DidYouKnow If April 16th, 1853 can be considered the beginning of Railway services in India, a more significant date was August 17th, 1849, which can be considered the red letter day in the history of Indian Railways. #IndianRailways#history
It was on this day that agreements were signed with East Indian Railway Company for a line from Calcutta to Raniganj (120 miles), with GIPR for a line from Bombay to Kalyan (33 miles), and with the Madras Railway Company for a line from Madras to Arkonam (39 miles).
#DidYouKnow Once the agreements were signed in August 1849, GIPR was the first company to make the most important appointment in November 1849 - an extremely bright 30-year old, King's College educated James Berkley - as their first Chief Engineer. #IndianRailways#History
James John Berkley had trained with Robert Stephenson, the famous son of a famous father, George Stephenson, who built the world's first railway with steam locomotives & had also worked as Chief Engineer of Trent Valley Railways. He was to now design India's first railway line.
Lunchtime humour (a lovely thread) - Gems from actual test papers! HOW did I survive without this vital information?
1. Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
2. Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
Cont'd...1/9
3. Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire. 4. Mushrooms always grow in damp places & so they look like umbrellas. 5. Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away. 6. To prevent milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow.
2/9
7. The parts of speech are lungs and air.
8. The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
9. A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
10. Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
All those cynics and so-called intellectuals mocking the speed of #VandeBharat and commenting on how the trains in the West and China have moved far ahead in speeds should know why we lagged behind. They should know the history of high-speed railways in India. A small thread!
As I have said earlier, when we ran the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express above 100 kmph in 1969, we were then the second country in Asia to run trains in excess of 100 kmph and China hadn't achieved this feat. But what happened after that? That's a tale of missed opportunities.
A lot of planning went into running the Rajdhani Express at a speed in excess of 100 kmph. An inter-departmental team of officers was formed to study the track and conduct oscillation trials on the rolling stock. I had the privilege of talking to one of the officers of that team.
Every morning, we would get a document called USF (Unsatisfactory Features) from our Control, which lists all events due to which there were delays in train services. The most disturbing one is the delay in trains caused due to the runover of a human trespasser. #IndianRailways
Everyday, there would be at least one such runover by a train. Once there's a runover, the loco pilot or motorman is supposed to stop the train and immediately inform the next station. The train would only start after the station authorities and the RPF take custody of the body.
The dead body is then taken to the nearest hospital for post-mortem and the family members are also informed. Such incidents also leave a scar on the psyche of the loco pilots as they would have to remove the mutilated dead body from the underframe and wait for assistance.
For those who grew up during the 70's and early 80's in middle class India, here are some things that you can identify with.
1. Though you may not publicly own to this, at the age of 12-17 years, you were very proud of your first "Bellbottom" or your first "Maxi".
Contd... 1/12
2. Phantom & Mandrake were your only true heroes. The brainy ones read Competition Success Review. 3. Your Camlin geometry box & Natraj/Flora pencil were your prized possessions. 4. The only Holidays you took were to go to your grandparents' or your cousins' houses.
Contd...2/12
5. Ice-cream meant only either an orange stick, a vanilla stick or a Choco Bar if you were better off.
6. You gave your neighbour’s phone number to others with a ‘c/o’ written against it because you'd booked yours 7 years ago & were still waiting for your number to come.
A couple of days back, I was tagged by @aparanjape to help @Vporia (whom I hadn't known earlier), whose 83-year old father had left behind his laptop bag in the Nizamuddin-Vasco express, while getting down at Pune station on 10th August. #IndianRailways
Receiving such a request more than a week after it happened makes the location of the lost item a little difficult. I decided to give it a chance and posted the travel details of her father, Mr.K.B.L.Saxena, along with a brief description of the item in the ADRMs #WhatsApp group.
Being the ADRM-I of the Chennai division in @GMSRailway, I am also a member of a WhatsApp group that connects the ADRMs in almost all the 68 divisions of #IndianRailways. I tagged ADRM/Pune who told me that the item would have gone with the train to Vasco da Gama station, #Goa.