Bombay to Thane, 1853: India’s first train and the CSMT, the back story

About Bombay to Thane, 1853: India’s first train and the CSMT, the back story

By the ULTIMATE Mumbai Editorial Team

Regional Editor, South Asia: Tara de la Motte

Mumbai is where India’s railway began. On 16 April 1853 a train of 14 carriages left Bori Bunder for Thane, and the station that replaced Bori Bunder, Frederick William Stevens’s Gothic masterpiece, now the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first train

On the afternoon of 16 April 1853, at Bori Bunder, a train of 14 carriages carrying about 400 guests set off for Thane, some 34 kilometres away, to a salute of guns. It was hauled by three locomotives named Sahib, Sultan and Sindh, and run by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. It was the first passenger train in India, and the beginning of one of the largest railway networks in the world.

The CSMT

Within a generation, Bori Bunder was replaced by a station worthy of the city. Designed by the British architect Frederick William Stevens and built between 1878 and 1888, the old Victoria Terminus blends Victorian Italian Gothic with traditional Indian architecture: domes, turrets, pointed arches, stained glass and carved stone peacocks, monkeys and lions. Renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in 1996 and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in 2017, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, and it is still the headquarters of the Central Railway and one of India’s busiest stations.

Every day, the trains of the city born on 16 April 1853 carry millions of Mumbaikars to work.

The lifeline of Mumbai

The trains are the city’s lifeline. The suburban railway carries millions of passengers a day, and the city’s famous dabbawalas use it to deliver home-cooked lunches across Mumbai with legendary accuracy. To ride a local train outside the rush hours, with the doors open and the city going by, is one of the great Mumbai experiences.

Our advice: see the CSMT from the street at dusk, when its façade is lit, and step inside its great booking hall. If you take a local train, travel outside the morning and evening peaks and use the first-class or ladies’ carriages if they suit you.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Bombay to Thane, 1853: India’s first train and the CSMT, the back story before you go.