Gwalior Light Railway from Marshall, Indian Narrow Gauge Steam Remembered

Information on narrow gauge railways can come from the most surprising sources. I had been aware of the Gwalior Light Railway, also later known as the Scindia State Railways, and I have probably even photographed some of its equipment at the National Railway Museum in New Delhi, but it was a biography of one of the last Maharani that really brought the line to my attention.

The extract at right comes from Vijayaraje Scindia with Manohar Malgonkar (1985). Princess: The Autobiography of the Dowager Maharani of Gwalior; New Delhi: Time Books International, pp 106-108.

The line was eventually incorporated into Indian Railway's Central Railway and parts of the line were converted to broad gauge. The 1976 photo above comes from Marshall, Lawrence G (2001). Indian Narrow Gauge Steam Remembered; East Harling, Norfolk: Plateway Press. Obviously the railway had become something more than a 'toy'; Marshall's book is highly recommended.

The education of the prince [Madhavrao Scindia, Maharaja of Gwalior] went on as planned, its principal aim being to mould him in the image of that imperial ideal, the product of a British public school. Luckily he had already been weaned on its basics, having as a boy been taught to ride and shoot and to love the outdoors. And when they tried to interest him in 'mechanical hobbies', they found that he couldn't have enough of mechanics; he was never happier then when tinkering with some machine or the other. When his guardian, Mr J. W. Johnstone, whom he called Masterji, went on leave to England, all he asked him to bring back was a toy train in which he could take himself for a ride.

The 'toy' railway that Masterji brought back for his pupil came in several wagonloads, for it consisted of a steam-engine, six carriages, and half a mile of railway track, all in a two-foot gauge. For the next few weeks Madhavrao bustled about laying track around his palace and, in the process, breaking down any compound walls that got in its way. When, however, the train made its trial run, the track was found to be too short because 'by the time the engine had gathered speed, it was necessary to close the throttle to avoid running into the dead end.' So two more miles of track were ordered, and because there was not enough room for it within the palace precincts, it was extended as far as the suburb of Morar.

This created an awkward political situation between the Resident and the Government. For while a railway train that could carry passengers and freight might be thought to be a toy if it operated within a private compound, when it ran from one part of the city to another it became a 'railway system'. And the British had always been most particular about not letting Indian princes build their own railways, communications being a jealously guarded imperial preserve.

In normal circumstances, the Government might well have demanded that the track should be dismantled, but since the violation was an offshoot of their own method of bringing up the Maharaja, they were prepared to 'regularize' the lapse. Indeed, a year or so latter, they even sanctioned extending the 'railway system' as far as Sussera, about eight miles from the capital, which was a hunting preserve where Madhavrao's father had built a shooting box.

Thus the Gwalior Light Railway (GLR) came into being as a princely toy. When completed years later, its track was more than 250 miles long, and it served the remoter parts of the Scindia's domain as a passenger and freight carrier in the days when motor vehicles were rare, and between the two World Wars became a part of the Indian railway network. Of late, with the burgeoning of road transport and the development of bus services, the railway became uneconomical, and much of its track was dismantled. Luckily, however, a section of about a hundred miles has been spared, and you can hear the little trains tooting impatiently and racing with the auto rikshas and tongas as they run through crowded localities, their carriages crammed to capacity, stopping at little stations which themselves look no bigger than ordinary railway carriages.