Boriya Bistar baandh lo, Rail gaadi aayi hai!

On this day, the first-ever passenger rail was thrown open to Indians; a project that captured the imagination of the common folk who were left awestruck.

Image showing the old and the present day Bori Bunder station; Source: News Nation

Reaching the station six hours earlier before the actual train time, sipping tea all day and buying cheap samosas and spoiling your stomach are one of a kind experiences which only Indians can enjoy, mostly. The cheap hard beds in the sleeper class or the first time first-class coaches which made the journey feel like a royal one are memories one often cannot forget.

In India, trains were already running due to the colonizers. However, not a single one of them was used for passenger services. But today, in 1853, the first passenger train ran a short distance of 34 km from Mumbai to Thane.

Considering India to be a Third World country, the citizens normally used the trains to commute, irrespective of the distance to be covered. Trains have always been an important part of a normal worker's life for commuting to their place of work in big cities from their homes.

The Indian Railway system connects the entire country by road and was one of the first countries to do so!

The railways also provide ample employment opportunities to the citizens of the country which in turn, facilitates financial growth. We celebrate today the journey of our first train which once paved the path for one of the largest railway networks in the world that now extends from hilly areas through waterfalls to the suffocated landmasses of the common people.

The first train was powered by three engines, Sultan, Sindh and Sahib. The royal titles being deserved by the engines as it carried 14 carriages in which 400 people were the subjects of history that day!

The journey was from the Bori Bunder railway station to modern-day Mumbai with a duration of only an hour and a half. This time would remain frozen in the books and the binaries of history as it would be remembered by anyone curious to know about the rich history of the journey of the journey maker.

This station still stands today, however it has received a small makeover and has been renamed as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus after Maharashtra's 17th-century king, Shivaji.