Western Railway in Mumbai turns 150 tomorrow

Western Railway on Friday will mark 150 years of its rail line entering Mumbai. It was on November 28, 1864, when the first Bombay Baroda and Central India (BB&CI) train on the western coastal lines of Bombay (now Mumbai) chugged into Grant Road station from Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

WR archives show that for its return journey, the train left Grant Road at 7am and reached Ahmedabad at 5pm the next day. In the Up direction on its way to Bombay, the train left Ahmedabad at 7am and arrived at Grant Road station at 5.30pm the next day.

The long journey is attributed to the trains in both directions running only up to Surat on the first day. The train would reach Surat around 5pm and leave for the next leg of the journey around 7am the next day. There was a refreshment room and Traveller's Bungalow at Surat for passengers who needed to go beyond the city.

An interesting anecdote from WR archives shows that because during those days the Narmada bridge was not built, there was a boat which ferried passengers across the river. First-class passengers had to pay six annas, second-class three annas, and third-class one anna for the boat ride. On either side of the river, there were palkees or shigrams for first- and second-class passengers for an extra Rs2 per passenger.

WR now runs about 60 trains between these two centres of trade and business, with some of its prestigious trains, including Shatabdi Express, Duronto Express, and AC Double Decker Express running on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route.

WR, in its present form, came into existence on November 5, 1951, with the merger of its forerunner, the BB&CI, with other state railways — Saurashtra, Rajputana and Jaipur.