The Railroads Of Bombay: A Journey to Victoria Terminus (that turned into a relic hunt)

This is a sort of a predecessor to the previous post, here I detail my journey to the iconic CSMT (erstwhile VT), which turned out to be quite a relic hunting exercise for me!

The Intriguing Journey

We finally arranged for a trip to CSMT from my home station of Borivali. Since we had to change trains due to the lack of direct connectivity, an idea struck my mind. What if we change at Bandra, and take a Harbour line Local? I looked at the schedule, and found that if this were to be done, there would have to be a long waiting period at Bandra, owing to difference in train timings. But even this would be a bonus, since I would get to spend time at the 1869 built, and 1888 rebuilt Bandra station. Further, I knew from the book 'Halt Station India' by Mr. Rajendra Aklekar, that the pillars of the station were made of six double headed rails (tracks) dating back to 1888, bound together.

We left for Bandra in the morning, and reached by 9:30. The first thing that fell into my sight was the beautiful station building. Next, I quickly searched for the pillars. And indeed there were six double headed rails bound together.

The Pillars at Bandra Stn.,
holding the roof.

On observing this, I couldn't find any readable inscriptions. Luckily, I found a bunch just nearby, this time with much more readable inscriptions-

Inscriptions on the rails.

The inscriptions are still not quite readable, but at least they read 'BB.CI', mentioning the erstwhile BB&CI railway that constructed today's Western Line. From there, we went to Platform 7, where we had to board our CST Local. It was on the footbridge, that I had a look of the magnificent station building.

The Bandra Station building

We then moved to the aforementioned platform, boarded the local, and set off towards CSMT. A while after departing from Bandra, we diverged from the Western Line, to enter the Harbour Branch. We passed through several old bridges and stations. While finding the images of these for the post, I found something amazing. At first glance, the structure below seems to be a normal stone bridge, given a white paint. But with a closer look, one finds an inscription saying 'October 1908' carved in the middle.

The Bridge

The inscription in the middle,
I found accidentally while zooming in.

The interesting part was when we were travelling on the section between King's Circle station, and Vadala Rd, when the already elevated line gradually moved higher and higher, before descending at Vadala. For an idea, see the picture below-

How High the line goes

After a while, we reached Reay Rd. This was an important station, being the orignal terminus when the Harbour Line opened back on 12 December 1910. I was especially excited for this, since the orignal structure of the station survives till date. I was unwilling to miss a thing, and promptly started recording. And of-course a Local poked its way in the video, when the stone wall part came.

We then finally reached Wadi Bunder, and got a bird's eye view of the Central Railway carshed there. From far could be seen the Hancock bridge, built in 1879, rebuilt in 1923, or a hundred years ago. I recorded this scene, and amidst that, mistook the Hancock bridge for the Carnac Bridge. (I muted the video, cause my brother messed with the audio)

Interestingly enough, at the start of the clip, you can spot the new Deccan Queen rakes inside the Wadi Bunder Carshed, following which are many more coaches of various types (all of them being either the Utkrisht or the LHB Rajdhani rakes) I zoomed into the Hancock bridge, after which the train entered the Rail electrification era- Sandhrust Rd station. After that, I was just on a hunt for the Famous Carnac Bridge; having forgotten that the bridge had been demolished back in last year.

From there we went forward, eventually entering the Terminus of CSMT. The train went through a curve, and entered the UNESCO designated station. I really felt a sense of pride, entering the heritage station, the same way commuters did 135 years ago.

The moment the train halted at its terminus, I saw an AC Local right beside our platform-A sign of innovation, among its origins. I had been to the station, back after an entire year. This station, I had first visited on 2nd October 2018, Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti. I had traveled all the way here with my aunt, just to view this ancient masterpiece. And I was back here.

I then marched ahead with pride, watching my favourite station's features. There was the roof, the pillars, near me, and the station's side walls, with their stained glass type windows afar. The next thing I spotted was the still-functioning clock. Of course I took pictures. I started recording a video of the hands moving, and since I did not want to miss the movement of the clock hands, started this much before. If you pay close attention (pls excuse my shaky hands), you will see the hand moving, and then oscillating here and there, before finally taking rest at 10:30.

While in a hurry to leave, I quickly captured a picture of the stained glass windows, the quality of which does not look good, due to the zoom quality of my phone. But trust me, it looked magnificent with the light shining through the coloured glass patterns.

Next I visited the nearby booking office. To say at the least, it was glorious.

The glorious Ticket Office chamber

And along with these glories, were unique sculptures on every pillar.

A Lion sculpture on one of the pillars

On the Western wall was a weird insignia of some sort, but as my mother pointed out, it actually read 'GIPR' the railway company that built the lines and this building, written in a creative manner.

Try to figure out the letters yourself. then of course, we went outside the building, and in front of us, was the icon of the Construction, the central part.And the resolution of this just happens to be good.

In this image, you can see the centerpiece clock, and the empty spot of the original statue of Queen Victoria, that stood below the clock. Besides these are the numerous design windows and at the top, the 'Crown of the station' (of course, I gave this name). At the top of the crown, is the Lady of Progress, holding a train wheel in one hand, and a lamp in the other, symbolizing the progress railways brought to the land and the sides of the crown, are sculptures of various animals. Just beside, was the Municipal Corporation building, just too beautiful to be left out here.

The BMC Headquarter building

Then we basically head towards the P.D.Mello Road, to reach Gallery adjacent to CSMT Platform 18. On the way, I took some more images. I would like to end this post with them.