TIME's video: INDIAN RAILWAY YOU DONT KNOW

The history of rail transport in India began in the mid-nineteenth century. Prior to 1850, there were no railway lines in the country. This changed with the first railway in 1853. Railways were gradually developed, for a short while by the British East India Company and subsequently by the Colonial British Government, primarily to transport troops for their numerous wars, and secondly to transport cotton for export to mills in UK. Transport of Indian passengers received little interest till 1947 when India got freedom and started to develop railways in a more judicious manner.[1] By 1929, there were 66,000 km (41,000 mi) of railway lines serving most of the districts in the country. At that point of time, the railways represented a capital value of some £687 million, and carried over 620 million passengers and approximately 90 million tons of goods a year.[2] The railways in India were a group of privately owned companies, mostly with British shareholders and whose profits invariably returned to Britain.[3] The military engineers of the East India Company, later of the British Indian Army, contributed to the birth and growth of the railways which gradually became the responsibility of civilian technocrats and engineers. However, construction and operation of rail transportation in the North West Frontier Province and in foreign nations during war or for military purposes was the responsibility of the military engineers.[2]