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VIKAS SINGH, RAIL ENTHUSIAST
DID YOU KNOW?
Solani Aqueduct at Roorkee: It was during the construction of the Solani Aqueduct at Roorkee, that the first rail ran in India.The aqueduct is a structure of fifteen arches spanning a valley a thousand feet wide. The river below, the Solani, is an intermittent stream which is generally dry. While constructing the aqueduct, British engineers wanted to bring a large quantity of clay, earth and other materials from the nearby Piran Kaliar area situated 10 km away from Roorkee. This necessity to bring earth and other material compelled the engineers to invent the possibility of running a train between the two points. The line laid was 4 feet 8 and half inch gauge. The engine wasbrought from England in 1851. It was 2-2-2 T loco manufactured by E B Wilson. The engine was named Thomason after the Executive engineer Thomson, who conceptualised and successfully completed the ambitious mega plan to run train here.Initially, two wagons were attached to the engine with a capacity to load 180 to 200 tonnes of material. The train used to cover a distance of two and half miles in 38 minutes between Roorkee and Piran Kaliar with a speed of four miles per hour The train remained operational for nine months until the locomotive caught fire one day in 1852. But by the time, the construction of the aqueduct had been completed. In 1984, the World Bank agreed to help fund the reconstruction of the canal, known as the “upper” Ganges Canal. Today the old bridge stands nearby: gracefully arched plastered brick, neatly dated with a plaque from the 1840s. Railways have installed a plaque at Roorkee station, which states the first run of Thomason was on Dec 22, 1851.A model of the loco, reconstructed at Amritsar workshop of Northern Railways, stands proudly outside the Roorkee station.
VIKAS SINGH, RAIL ENTHUSIAST
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