Eastern Region Transport Survey Volume III Railways

Abstract

General: The economic and industrial growth of the fertile and thickly populated Eastern Region of India is largely due to rail transport. The first railway in ill s Region was the 120 kilometre line built between Howrah and Raniganj in 1854, less than 30 years after the opening of the pioneer line between Stockton & Darlington in England. Other railway lines quickly followed, as the British, who then ruled the country, recognised the immense advantages of this form of transport over the slow road and water transport which was all that had been available before. In those early years, the main reasons for railway growth were military and administrative, to move troops and their equipment quickly to places where they were needed, and -to-carry food grains in bulk to famine stricken areas. In 1880, a Famine Commission reported that the railway system should be extended, "as a protective measure" to 20,000 miles.