The legacy of Jackson and his railway bank

It was an honour and privilege to accompany Richard Campbell Jackson around the Churchgate heritage gallery and the WR GM bungalow 'Bombarci' as he was nostalgic about his birth city. 

Richard is the grandson of Sir Ernest Jackson, the Agent or the General Manager of Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway, now Western Railway, back in 1925-1932 and founder of the Jackson Co-op Bank used by railwaymen today. 

Sir Ernest was the one who started the Frontier Mail train to give tough competition to the GIP Railway's Punjab Limited.  It was during Sir Jackson's time that the Colaba station was shut and Mumbai Central station was built as it stands today. Also the time when the railway was first electrified.

His grandson Richard, born in the city is today 81, was about 9 years' old when he left Mumbai in 1947. My article on him and some pics.

Click HERE to read complete text of his visit.

If the link did not open, you may read the entire article here:

CAN I see the garden in the backyard? I know there is one," smiled a nostalgic Englishman visiting the spacious bungalow of Mumbai's Western Railway General Manager.

Richard Campbell-Jackson, grandson of Sir Ernest Jackson, who built the then Bombay Central station as the General Manager of the Western Railway, was visiting the city with his wife. "The road in the front was much farther then," the 81-year-old (born in 1937), exclaimed as he took an emotional tour of the bungalow that he lived in decades ago. Named Bombarci, after the old name of Western Railway - Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway (BB&CI) - the spacious bungalow located on Altamount Road, was built in 1925. Sir Ernest Jackson was the General Manager for Western Railway between 1925 and 1932, when he got the (now) Mumbai Central station built along with starting the iconic Frontier Mail train, playing a crucial role in electrification of railways and founding the railway co-operative credit society.

Calling himself a Bombay boy, Richard Jackson, in his first visit to the city since he left it at the age of nine, said that he has vivid memories of the place. "I was born at Malabar Hill and have pleasant memories of the city. I remember the road in front of the bungalow was much farther ahead. It looks so closer now. I also remember the sprawling backyard garden. This has been such a vibrant city and I see that it still remains so," he said. His wife Alison was equally excited. "It's so magical to come here. Richard always wanted to be back in the city he was born in," she told mid-day. Earlier in the day, the two also visited Churchgate and met General Manager Western Railway A K Gupta who showed him old photographs of his grandfather in the railway journals. After looking at the steam engine exhibit in the heritage gallery, Jackson expressed delight. "It is good to know that India is reviving steam engines. It is a very strong movement in England," he said.

 "It is a huge honour for me to revisit [the place] where my grandfather was building the BBCI [now Mumbai Central] and to meet Mr Gupta and his staff. A truly outstanding visit and a unique experience," Jackson wrote in the visitor's book.

Sir Ernest Jackson (also known as Edward) was born in 1876 and arrived in India in 1900 with a posting on the East India Railway and later the Calcutta Port Trust. In 1911, he took the post of Chief Auditor on the Bombay, Baroda and Central India (BB&CI) Railway that is today's Western Railway and later went on a tour of America and Canada as member of Railway Accounts Commission until 1925 when he was appointed as the Agent (now called General Manager) of the Western Railway.

That was a crucial time when the railway was seeing radical changes like getting electrified and quadrupled. The line was cut down from Colaba to Churchgate and a new station building was built at Mumbai Central. Sir Ernest Jackson oversaw all this, but he is more famously known for a bank in his name, the Jackson Co-op Bank at Grant Road that is popular among the railway employees.

He was also instrumental in the rebuilding of the Vasai creek bridge and the iconic Frontier Mail train in 1928. It was started to give a healthy competition to the Punjab Limited run by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (now CR) playing between then Bombay Victoria Terminus and Peshawar. The Frontier Mail was faster at 72 hours and on its return to Churchgate, the station building was lit to welcome it, again an idea of Jackson.

Jackson’s great granddaughter, Polyandra Stokoe and Richard's second cousin, had visited Churchgate in January 2018. "We were happy to welcome the descendents of Sir Jackson, which evoked much nostalgia. We took them around the heritage gallery and the general manager's bungalow and they were overawed by the legacy," Western Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Ravinder Bhakar said.

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Old British design at Mumbai railway stations

Design features of old British railway stations can still be found at a number of Mumbai stations.

Sir Leslie Wilson arrives at Mumbai CSMT

What a day today! They say life comes a full circle and was a witness to the momentous event today when the Sir Leslie Wilson or EF/1, India’s first electric freight locomotive class that was introduced in 1928 returned home at Mumbai CSMT or formerly Bombay Victoria Terminus station.

I say home because the engine was in active service till 1992 and had spent its lifetime here and after retirement shifted to Kalyan electric loco shed. The engine has now been brought here to be a part of the ‘Heritage Alley’ on World Heritage Day 2018 and will be on permanent display. Sir Leslie Orme Wilson was the Governor of Bombay in 1928 who inaugurated the loco and hence named after him.

It was transported by road, splitting it into three parts that were later assembled here. It features the original livery of India’s first railway company, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, now Central Railway. EF/1 20067 is one of the two remaining of the class, the other one being at National Rail Museum in New Delhi.

Run-up to World Heritage Day 2018 at Mumbai CSMT

Preparations of #worldheritageday at Mumbai CSMT on @Central_Railway A steam crane, a stone crusher, an antique printing machine and the country's first electric loco. The heritage alley will be open for permanent display from the evening of April 18, 2018.

Happy Birthday, Indian Railways. 165 years of glorious service from 1853-2018

Oldest rail platforms at Mumbai CSMT demolished

Rajendra B. Aklekar

It has been an end of an era. One of the oldest existing station platforms in the Mumbai CSMT station, formerly Bombay Victoria Terminus, precincts -all with cobblestone flooring, cast iron pillars, teak wood doors and interiors, belonging to the time of India’s first railway company -- the Great Indian Peninsula Railway—was finally in the process of being brought down for newer railway projects.

Railway authorities promised to shelve whatever they could from this old station and make it a part of the heritage gallery and proposed alley.

Known as Carnac Bunder siding, the station had been virtually untouched by railway authorities for decades but still standing sturdy.

The entire station platform building with a steam crane at one end had been almost stuck in a time warp.

The railways have now repainted and reviving the steam crane to be a part of a heritage museum, but the old station is being lost. Sources said it was all in active use till the 1950s.

If old and new maps of the area are juxtaposed, these sheds are roughly located on the same site where the goods sheds of the old original Bori Bunder station had been built, before the majestic world heritage Mumbai CSMT building came up.

The site of the goods sheds has remained the same though bigger sheds and platforms were built in the 1890s after the construction of the Victoria Terminus. 

The sheds that one finds today too are old and built in stone, high-pitched roof with antique fittings built with construction techniques commonly used during the later part of the 19th century, including teakwood furnishings, large metal straps used to bind the six-framed huge doors, windows and vents, old tracks with cast iron sleepers.

It has two platforms, now completely abandoned.

The one adjoining P.D’Mello Road, platform number one, has several bays at right angles for ferrying cargo by road transport vehicles and the second one facing the west  resembles a godown.

The entire platform is of cobble-stone flooring and once had various scales, sunk in pits, now most of them removed.

A rotten wooden board in one corner of the west-facing platform says Ludhina fast or ordinary service and scale number one, platform number two...the rest details are not legible, a legacy of organized cargo transport by rail.

City historian Deepak Rao lamented the fact that one by one old relics were being lost but appreciated the railways that they had agreed to save a few older relics. “The docks and rail have a glorious transport history in old Bombay.

These were the places which once brought fortune to the city,” he added.

Chief Public Relations Officer Sunil Udasi told Mid-Day the Central Railway team will try and save as many old relics as possible from the old station siding.

1890 Tower Clock at Lower Parel workshop, Mumbai

Rajendra B. Aklekar

Rare Gem: The Western Railway has a remarkable and elegant fully-functional mechanical clock tower set from 1890s with a bell and fire alarm at its Lower Parel workshop in Mumbai.

The Western Railway has traced the roots of one of its old and functional tower clocks at Lower Parel workshop and found it to be a rare one, possibly the only such large one from 1890s manufactured by England-based Gillett Johnson company. It is functional on its own energy which is bound in brass weights and operated by mechanical pulleys.

Western Railway officials said that the clock has been functional since the day it had been installed and when we found out about its origins, we found it to be a rare piece on Western Railway, Mumbai and such a piece of functional tower clock is nowhere else in Mumbai division. The clock has markings of the old Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway (BB&CI), which is now called Western Railway.

Workshop employees said that such a rare functional clock working on mechanical principles is a novelty for the present generation and we sometimes get school children here to show its functioning.

Officials added that the heritage clock was manufactured in the year 1889 and is located at prominent locations on one of the oldest tower sheds at Lower Parel workshop. It has been made at the manufacturing base at Union Road Croydon, England, which  started making clocks from 1844.

The heritage clock set also has an old tune bell manufactured at the same factory in 1890. The firm had successfully revived an old technique for tuning bells to themselves by shaving the bell interior to bring the bell’s natural harmonic series in tune with itself. The cast number of the bell is 122, weighing 57 kg., having a dia. of 425 mm. and height of 430 mm.

The heritage clock works mechanically using gears. Its metal spring stores energy required for running the clock. The mechanism is compact, robust and simple which requires no maintenance. The spring is wound once a week for providing energy to run the clock.

Below the clock and the bell is a rare fire alarm system, again operated mechanically, which sets alarm in case of a blaze.

This makes it a complete set of functional 19th century equipment with the tower clock, an iron bell and a mechanical fire alarm.

"We have maintained all these heritage assets with utmost care and meticulous maintainence. The clock needs to be given a key once a week and then it runs on its own," Western Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Ravinder Bhakar said, adding keeping such rare artefacts alive is very important and Western Railway always is always ahead in it.


The clock which is one metre in diametre works with mechanism on brass components to avoid corrosion. It has a rope of brass wire with 5kg weight with brass pulley tied with a counter weight of 29kg.

About the bell

This bell is similar in construction to first quarter bell, second quarter bell and Hour bell available in Mechanical Engineering building of Imperial College, Knightsbridge, Middlesex, London. The bell foundry was close in 1957. The foundry in Croydon, England was demolished in 1997. Croydon site notes how from 1844 to 1954, 14,000 tower clocks were made at this foundry.

End of an era! Another relic of India's first railway gone! This was at Sewri station, Harbour Branch, Mumbai!

For the record. This was demolished on Sunday March 4, 2018.

The Railways of India, 1923

Lost Railway Twins? One in Scotland, another in India

Rajendra B. Aklekar

The story of the abandoned rail ballast stone crusher (W.H Baxter- 1878) found near railway tracks at Lonavala by Jayant Ramdasi has taken a curious turn.

The top one is in Scotland, the one below in India

A very similar stone crusher with similar markings and etchings has now been found at Isle of Skye, Scotland in a similar state. Here I put up a collage of both of them. Two brothers- one in Maharashtra, India, another at Isle of Skye, Scotland.

The stone crusher near Lonavala was probably used by the engineers along the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, India’s first railway company, to break stones for maintaining rail tracks and other construction-related activities in the tough mountainous terrain between Mumbai and Pune. 

While Ramdasi spotted it near railway tracks in Lonavala in Maharashtra and put up on the social media, scientist, engineer from Scotland Lindsay Wilson reacted saying "there's one near where we live on the Isle of Skye in Scotland and put up a pic. Isn't it interesting?

However, it is not clear how old the machine could be as records suggest that the orders with WH Baxter and Company were placed till as late as 1955, by which time the original Great Indian Peninsula Company had been renamed as Central Railway.

In fact, it was in 1878 that the WH Baxter Company was established and the date on the plaque could be an indicator that as well. But whatever is the case, it is a fact that the W.H Baxter stone breakers were known to be revolutionary, having crushed tons of stones per hour at a comparatively lesser power requirement.

The stone breaker models

A news report in a construction journal of 1880, The Building News, stated that that the latest version of the stone breaker that year was a much better performer than the earlier one, though it did not demonstrate well. 

It is recorded that the new one experimented and could break as much as six tonnes of stones per hour and that two machines of this company could be used at the same amount of power required for one of any other sort.

It was in 1878 that engineer William Henry Baxter of Albion Street, Leeds established the company W. H. Baxter and Co. to manufacture various construction-related equipment.

The 1880 news report

The Grace’s Guide states that it was an exhibitor at the 1881 Royal Agricultural Show at Derby and was incorporated as a limited company in 1898 and had received a large order for stone-breaking machines for India.

Whatever may be the case, the antique stone beaker, now with its twin in England, deserves to be salvaged from Lonavala, Maharashtra, and preserved locally or shifted to the National Railway Museum in New Delhi, as an extraordinary piece of 20^th century engineering marvel.

FW Stevens' great grand daughter in Mumbai

Rajendra B. Aklekar

Absolute honour to co-host Diana Robertson and her husband Kevin, the fourth generation descendants of the nineteenth century iconic architect FW Stevens, along with Anita Rane-kothare, head of department of Ancient Indian Culture, St Xavier's College, in Mumbai. It was Kothare who got in touch with her and connected her with the city. It was Diana's very first visit to Mumbai and she was very sentimental to see that Stevens is so much respected and remembered in Mumbai even today. (Read her visit details HERE)

Frederick William Stevens (FW Stevens)

The event was jointly conducted with the co-operation of Central Railway chief PRO Narendra Patil and his team. Also thanks to Pheroza Godrej, Bharat Gothoskar of Khaki Tours.

It was a privilege to receive a memento at the hands of Pheroza Godrej at the event.

For the uninitiated FW Stevens or Frederick William Stevens is the architect of Victoria Terminus- today Mumbai CST, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage site, the Mumbai Municipal Head Office, the Western Railway Churchgate Head Office (formerly Bombay Baroda and Central India Office), the Sailors Home, what is today the Maharashtra Police Headquarters and many more in Mumbai.

Stevens received various honours. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire "for services rendered in connection with public buildings in Bombay," and gained medals for his designs in exhibitions held in Bombay in 1872 and 1879, as well as becoming a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Receiving FW Stevens' descendant Diana Robertson and
Kevin at the Taj, alongwith Anita Rane-Kothare

He was only 52 when he died of malaria at his home in the Malabar Hills in 1900, and was buried in Sewri Christian Cemetery, where his grave carries the inscription, "In loving memory of Frederick William Stevens, born May 11th 1847, died March 5th 1900." Diana also broke down at the cemetary during the visit on April 20, 2017. A few photographs.

Diana at the Sewri Christian Cemetery, Mumbai

The old burial details and purchase records
at the  Sewri Christian Cemetery, Mumbai

FW Stevens grave at Sewri Christian Cemetery, Mumbai

The old records at  Sewri Christian Cemetery, Mumbai

Moment of Pride: In front of the building with the creator's descendants

In front of Mumbai CST, formerly Victoria Terminus

In front of Mumbai CST, formerly Victoria Terminus

On the second floor, below the dome of the iconic
Mumbai CST, formerly Victoria Terminus building

Privileged to receive a memento at the hands of Pheroza Godrej 

Century-old signal cabin along India's first railway line pulled down

A 100-year-old signal cabin lost its life to make way for the landing of a new pedestrian bridge at Kurla suburban railway station. This had been a part of India's first railway company, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company.

1st Day tickets of Ram Mandir railway station in Mumbai

First day tickets issued from Mumbai's newest suburban railway station Ram Mandir collected by friend Jigar Desai. The station on Western Railway Mumbai division was formally opened on December 22, 2016.