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Raj Steam - Bangladesh Steam |
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Bangladesh Railways was the successor
organisation after separation for the Pakistan Eastern Railway formed at
partition.
The railway was divided in two by the southern part of the Brahmaputra River, known as the Padma River in the south of the country. To the east, the railways were historically entirely metre gauge being built as the Assam Bengal Railway to connect Chittagong with the plantations and mines of Assam around Tinsukia and, in time, more lines were built west. At partition, in general those lines in the plains became part of Pakistan and the hilly section became part of today's India. The main workshops were at Pahartali near Chittagong. To the west, the Eastern Bengal Railway was a broad gauge line that connected Calcutta with Siliguri with a number of branches, particularly in the south. At partition it lost both its northern and southern terminuses and with that most of its main traffic. By then it had been amalgamated with a number of metre gauge lines to form the Eastern Bengal State Railway. These metre gauge lines connected with what became West Bengal in India in several places. The main workshops at Saidpur in the north of the country were, at least, within the country and, although on the broad gauge main line, had a metre gauge connection to Parbatipur. At the time shown here, the two systems had no physical connection, (metre gauge) stock and passengers being transferred by ferry between Tistamukh Ghat (near Bonarpara) and Bahadurabad Ghat. There was a second passenger ferry further south. Now, the ferries and their short connecting branches are effectively abandoned, and bridges do the job especially as new lines have been built and regauging has taken place. All photographers are acknowledged by their initials, their identity can readily be established from the list in 'The Last Word' link. Sadly more than one third are no longer with us, let these pages be a memorial to their efforts for the benefit of future generations of enthusiasts. This is version 1 covering narrow and metre gauges. Compared to other elements of the Raj Steam project it is lacking in images of steam at work, largely because not many visitors went to the country and of these very few went before ca 1980 after which steam was restricted to shunting and departmental workings such as ballast trains. As such I would welcome suitable additional contributions. There is an email address at the bottom of the page to make contact. |
