In 1844, the East India Company was asked to assist two railway companies to set up a railway system in India. On December 22, 1851, the first train in India became operational. It was a freight train that carried clay to build the Ganga canal and the journey was from Roorkee, now in Uttarakhand, to Piran Kaliyar, about 10km away.
About a year and a half later, the first passenger train service would be inaugurated Bori Bunder station in Bombay to Tannah (now Thane).
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The engine of the train had arrived from England the same year. It was named Thompson after the engineer who planned the railway system in the area.
The train could carry up to 200 tonnes of material at a speed of 4km per hour.
