A discovery of an 117-year-old stone at Thane railway station in Mumbai on Central Railway recently has evoked
memories of how this railway station played host to the continent's first railway train that ran in 1853 between Boree Bunder (today's Mumbai CST) and Thane. I noticed the stone a few months ago lying in the station premise.
The stone with engravings '1899' found at the station while digging for construction of a public utility has
reiterated the importance and historic place of Thane in the history of Indian
Railways. Thane station deserves a special place in Indian Railways’ history books. Today, the station seems to have got lost in the crowd, traffic and a
maze of pedestrian and vehicular bridges, and escalators (the one at Thane was
the first on Mumbai railway), but here goes the story of how it was the first
terminus.
Said to have been built on the site of the old Gamdevi temple that is now in the east, the first railway tracks were laid such as they entered Thane’s koliwada, the fishing village, to split it into two –east and west. Near the station today, the area is still called koliwada, but the sea is now much far behind and fishing is hardly the main occupation here.
When the first train arrived, there were durbar tents and
delicacies waiting for the passengers of the first train on open grounds. Once
the railway started regular runs, there was need to upgrade the station.
Additional land of about four acres had been acquired for the
station. Of the total land, about 3 acres was owned by about 30 residents and
the GIP Railway Company acquired it at a cost of Rs 1,000 per acre for
agricultural land and Rs 500 per acre barren one. The acquisition was complete
by 1891. A bigger station was soon built in those days of steam engines. The
first electric local train did not come to Thane before December 1926. Nevertheless, today, Thane is a ten-platform station premise, always busy and crowded.
Speaking on the stone, while a few local officials said that recently when the foundations of one of the new bridges were being laid, contractors and workers stumbled upon this stone (about 1.5 feet in height and
less than a feet in width) with markings 1899 and that the presence of mind by station officials saved the historic stone, a few others said that the stone has been lying in the station premise for quite some time. Whatever be the story, it is a fact that this stone with its engravings is from the old building structure when the station was first rebuilt and upgraded in the late 1890s.
Local CR officials said it is now being
preserved. In fact, the existing platform two of the station had an old stone
building that was recently partially renovated when the new bridges were being
built. The stone could have been from the foundations of one of these old walls, which
were a part of the original structure.
While local railway officials said they
were not of the exact details, city historians said it could be an important
piece of history given the fact that Thane was a part of India's first railway
line that was opened 46 years earlier in 1853. "It is indeed a rare find
and such things always add to the glory of history of railways. The stone
should be shifted to the railways' heritage gallery," Deepak Rao said.
The Central Railway in fact does plans to move this stone to
the heritage gallery at Mumbai CST at a later date where all such relics have been gathered.
Thane station also has numerous smaller relics of the old Great
Indian Peninsula Railway Company, India’s first railway, now called Central
Railway, which have been described in much detail in my book, Halt
Station India, available in print and Kindle formats.
A set of old salt department sidings once bifurcated from
Thane station in the east to reach an old jetty that still exists. The place today is a small promenade. The
remains of the single line sidings and the path of permanent way can still be
traced under a new sky-walk and a road divider today along what was then called
the Mithbandar Road and now named Rambhau Mhalgi Road.
The path ends at an old cargo shed along the former jetty.
When documented in 2010, the old wooden cargo shed with worth a view with
remains of an iron weighing scale and cobblestone flooring, but today, the worn
out shed has collapsed and forgotten like the city’s railway history and old
lines.