DISCOVER JAMALPUR

Jamalpur in Bihar's Monghyr Disrict has one of the most remarkable Railway Workshops in the World, and the largest in India. Not even the US of A can surpass India's mammoth railway network, the busiest in the world.


Jamalpur, pioneering railway workshop

Jamalpur Workshop has the proud privilege of being the only railway workshop , where broad gauge cranes for railway's use are manufactured. This is the only railway workshop where large, microprocessor controlled 140-Ton capacity break down cranes for Indian Railways are manufactured indigenously with very little import content.
This workshop has completed over 140 years of glorious performance and dedicated service to the Nation. Ironically it stands alone in the Industrial desert of the northern part of Bihar in general and in Munger District in particular.
This is the only workshop in Indian Railways to have been equipped with its own 5 MVA power house.

Jamalpur Rly Workshop ‘ FIRSTS’



The first to manufacture a steam locomotive
(The first one, CA 764 'Lady Curzon', was produced in 1899.) at a cost of Rs. 33,000/- which served for 33 years. The manufacture of Steam locomotive was stopped in the year 1923 .

Jamalpur Workshop built 216 locomotives and locomotive boilers – between 1899 and 1923.

The first to have set up a rolling mill not only on the railways, but probably in the country in 1870.(now closed)The first to establish a railway foundry in the year 1893.

The first to build a rail- travelling crane in India with indigenous know-how in 1961.

The first to manufacture high capacity synchronised electrically operated lifting jacks popularly known as "Jamalpur jacks" in 1962 and ticket printing, ticket chopping, ticket slitting and ticket counting machines.

The first and the only railway workshop to manufacture electrical arc furnaces of ½ tonne capacity in 1961 for production of steel casting
'The Express' - the sister of 'Fairy Queen' built 1855
Click on the first picture for more about Monghyr/ Munger in Bihar.
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I came across this wonderful resource :
Railway Colonies in India by John Alton Price


When quite a child in India I had gathered, from the odd word I happened to overhear, or the odd attitude one observed when the subject of Railways was mentioned there seemed to be an antipathy towards 'those Railway people'.

This rather upset me and I thought the attitude was somewhat curious, not to say unfair. I found out as I grew older and a bit more knowledgeable that the Railway people were considered a bit 'Racy' and not quite up to the mark or shall we say a bit common. In much later days I was to discover for myself that these opinions were positively unfair and rather, or downright ignorant. I had in my 'growing up' days had very little contact with railway people in India, except for the occasional meeting through rail travel.

During my service in the Military I was to be Posted to a quite important Railway Station called Jamalpur, in Bihar. It was early May 1942 and our Unit was transported to a wooded area to set up Camp.

I was to discover that Jamalpur had the third largest Railway Workshop in the World (or so I was told) and was responsible for the training of Railway Engineers who came to the Workshops after they had passed out of their particular schools of academia. Consequently most male members of the town were Railway Engineers of one kind or another, However high or low in status I found them most agreeable. I was never able to have a guided tour of the workshops but I'm sure the inner workings of the railway would have been interesting. In the front of the Workshop buildings, on a three foot high pedestal was placed a Locomotive which happened to be the first Engine to ride the rails of The East Indian Railways. I have a photo of the beautiful machine.



[ This is an edited version, click on the picture of the engine for a time travel to Jamalpur in the 1940's