On Track – Railway Heritage Anecdotes

A length of the road has tall walls with colourful gigantic containers behind. Some trucks, tankers to carry goods to and fro. The Hooghly Jute Mills gate is closed and a majestic red house looms ahead. Four domes, a turret, windows with”kharkaris” announcing the Railway premises. The Bengal Nagpur Railway Headquarters and is till date referred to as BNR. The Logo interestingly has a tiger and snake from Bengal and Nagpur possibly.

The East of India before independence included Bengal, Bihar, Orissa even MP, hence the nomenclature. The management of the BNR was taken over by the Government of India in 1944. In 1952 BNR merged with East Indian Railway Company to form Eastern Railway. In 1955, South Eastern Railway (SER) was made an independent unit of the Eastern Railway. It comprised lines mostly operated by the BNR earlier. This premises is located in the middle of two bends of the river and is across the river from the Botanical Gardens.

The tour of this fascinating place was conducted by the officials of the Railways and they marshalled us from one historic building to another. We ended with a sumptuous breakfast at the Canteen. Mr Mishra leading the tour was well informed and made the discourse very interesting layering it with facts, dates, corroborative evidence and even literary references.

We started at the steam engine at the entrance. A locomotive like any other, it was flanked by a rectangular box from which a ball was dispensed and it gave the trains the right of way. The physical token / ball block mechanism that was used in the 1900s as a safety device to prevent train collisions. The 2 station masters would coordinate with telegraphic signals, take that ball out of that pin ball looking machine and physically hand it over to the train driver who would only then have the authority to drive on that track. And if the train was not stopping at the station then the driver used a long hoop to pick up the ball while moving, in true cowboy style. At night he was aided from the light of a mashaal!

The red and green signal looking like a lever was something we have all grown up with. The simplest signal at default stop position. One glass is red & the other blue because the fuel lit lamp lit behind threw off a yellow hue, thus the red would appear as amber and the blue would appear as green!

Further down there was an upright Ball Signal which consisted of a ball which moved up and down. The raised position of the ball stands for stop, while a down position is for go. The signal was once used to dispatch trains to a pontoon jetty from 1880s to 1950s. The ball signal was restored in 2005, and probably is the only standing ball signal in the country.

The Main Office is housed in a massive red building built in the Indo – Saracenic style. It was constructed in 1907 at a cost of rupees seven lakhs and took 13 months to build. It looks a lot like the Queens Memorial in Victoria. Vincent Esch , the architect of this imposing red façade was also in charge of the design for the Victoria Memorial. The hallway has a huge domed arch flanked by four wings. A Central Staircase leads upto the Offices of the Management. The Manager was referred to as the Agent. The Chief Agent’s office and the offices of the senior management were around the main staircase. Each department stretches radially with 4 corner staircases at each end so that junior officers were permitted to use only those.

The building is connected to the annexe by a corridor leading to the back extension built in the 1940s. Here we visited the Museum. A fascinating collection of memorabilia again created a wave of nostalgia. At the entrance to the Heritage Room, an old weighing machine, manufactured in 1888 stood upright and could weigh tonnes. The folding steel basin, the coat rack and dresser from the waiting room, signals, telex machines, crockery and a host of bric a brac. It was here that the artillery during World War II was commissioned and these were on display. The Railways employed women, and enough in number for them to have a separate Ladies Tiffin Room!

The role of the Railway during the War was highlighted with a small brass plaque in the midst of beautifully manicured gardens which honours the RAF. It was here that they dispersed ballons which covered important monuments like the Howrah Bridge and Victoria Memorial. This reduced the visibility for the fighter planes and these edifices were saved from bombardment by the Japanese fighter planes..

Godfrey Mansions built as senior staff residences in the early 1900. The ground floor originally consisted of stables overlooked the beautiful gardens. Each apartment of 3500 square feet has three bedrooms each.

Building No 11 was constructed in 1846 It was originally built for Sir William Peel and it predates the head quarter building by half a century. It is inspired by The Temple of Winds in Athens which can be seen also in the Metcalfe and Town Hall in Calcutta. Nawab Wajid Ali shah lived here for a while after his release from Fort William and it was referred to as the Parikhana where he entertained musicians poets and dancers. Before him this house was occupied by the Chief justice of the Court and later by the erstwhile Governors and later when Raj Bhavan was constructed it was taken over by the Hospital before being occupied by the General Manager of the SER.

Bungalow No 12 was the original Agent’s Office before the BNR office HQ was built. For a while it also became the P & O shipping office, before being turned into an immigration office for the indentured labour heading to Surinam & Trinidad.

A plaque in front of the house no 13 refers to William Jones as the occupant till his death on 27 April 1794 and was buried in the South Park Street Cemetery. His wife was an artist and Botanist and has illustrated and recorded hundreds of plants while William Jones studied the texts and the Indian languages. He knew 9 of them fluently. languages. He was the first person to establish that Sandrakotas in the Greek texts was Chandragupta Maurya. Every discovery and mapping documented accounts of travellers pushed back the History hundreds of years. An ancient civilisation! The demolished, reconstructed & rebuilt front of bungalow number 13 shorn of patio & grand portico.

We walked upto the terrace for a breathtaking panoramic view of the area. The river and both the bridges were visible under the clear blue sky. Importantly Solar panels on the Terrace indicated that the Building was trying to become eco friendly.

The most striking feature of the Complex was the immaculate maintenance and the Documentation. The Houses had the original drawings with the architect’s name affixed. Invaluable lesson for Heritage and History and its relevance in time.