Forgotten station found after decades

Hindustan Times Page 1, September 5

Mumbai, September 4
Rajendra Aklekar
AS the Central Railway is set to open a swank new entrance today
along the P D'Mello Road on more than 20 acres of land that earlier
housed old railway sheds and tracks, a little piece of the forgetten
past has been discovered hidden among the bushes.

An old cargo station, probably built during the early part of this
century, with original teakwood furnishings, including huge doors,
windows and vents, old tracks with cast iron sleepers and a huge
steam-operated iron crane of the good old days.

The old station is parallel to the P D'Mello Road and is complete
with cobble stone flooring, teak wood pillars and with tracks having
cast iron sleepers, which were used in the earlier part of the
century, as if frozen in time. Railway officials said this cargo
station could be the place where goods to load and unload goods from
steamers that docked at Princess Dock along the eastern coast.

Central Railway, earlier known as the Great Indian Peninsula Railway,
was the first railway company in the country to pioneer railway
transport and Mumbai CST, the first ever railway station.

"In the second half of 1879, there were plans by the then traffic
manager to prepare more railway sidings and it was around the same
year that a railway line was built in Princess Dock for merchants to
place their produce directly from railway wagons to steamers," CR's
former chief planning manager SN Sharma, says in his book on the
History of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.

It could be a part of the early part of the 20th century, when CST
was being expanded and a new mainline station being built or much
older, but it's a cargo station for sure, an official said. "The
steam crane was a part of the goods shed and there are a few of these
steam ones remaining in India," he added.

"We have cleared the area for the new entrance, but have not
demolished this part of the station as old teakwood furnishings have
been found here," divisional railway manager Jayendra Nath Lal, CR's
Mumbai chief said.

"This could be an old station which is connected to the docklands as
ships and steamers would get in the cargo. One will probably be able
to find more about it if one studies the old maps," Mumbai historian
Deepak Rao said.

Rajesh Agrawal, executive director (heritage) in railway board New
Delhi, said, works in the buffer zone of a heritage building like
this have to be done in co-ordination with heritage teams to identify
such instances. "I would like to see what has been discovered," he
said.

New entrance at CST ---What has been found

· Old goods shed with cobble stone flooring and teakwood
furnishings
· Old tracks with cast iron sleepers
· Steam-operated crane