Tracing the history of the Indian Railways would lead one to the mid-19th century. The pressure to build a network on rails in India came from London. The first railway was built by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR). It was inaugurated in 1853 and it connected Bombay and Thane.
From 1857 onwards a British engineer named Robert Maitland Brereton was responsible for the expansion of the railways. In June 1867 the Allahabad-Jabalpur line of the East Indian Railway was opened and Brereton linked this with the GIPR. So now, the network ran for a length of 6,400 km. It was now possible to travel directly from Bombay to Calcutta.
At the opening ceremony, the Viceroy Lord Mayo said, “it was thought desirable that, if possible, at the earliest possible moment, the whole country should be covered with a network of lines in a uniform system”.
Today the Indian Railways is probably one of the largest networks in the world. Railway lines crisscross the country connecting every nook and cranny to the metropolises.
