Relics of India's first railway at Bhandup and Mumbra stations in Mumbai dismantled to build new footver bridges and other station upgrades have been planned to be exhibits of pride at the UNESCO-listed heritage gallery at Mumbai CSMT building, following the intervention of the author.
The relics were brought in from two stations one at Bhandup and other at Mumbra. The Bhandup ones include brackets of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company (GIPR), which ran the pioneering passenger train in India that was later renamed Central Railway.
Bhandup has been one of original stations along the first railway line. The wrought iron brackets have the logos of the GIPR railway company designed into them. Bhandup was one of the key stations where India's first passenger train in 1853 had made a brief halt.
At Mumbra, the station brackets were no longer there, but what was discovered was an all-weather and sturdy Victorian-era Tucker and Reeves' patent wall safe embedded in the building structure which was intact even after the building was partially brought down. Bolt locks and safes from the Tucker & Reeves are also a part of the permanent collection of the Science Museum in London. The booking office safe used to be an important feature of the building and was in use till almost two decades ago before the new booking office and computerisation came up.
"The relics have been safely brought here and they will now be cleaned up, treated and kept on display at the heritage gallery among the other artefacts. It was quite a task to transport them as they are genuine old iron work. But the things are of immense value as they are parts of the first railway company and central pieces of India's railway history," a CR spokesperson said. The heritage gallery at Mumbai CSMT station is a ticketed museum.