- The Bhor Ghat railway linked Bombay to Poona, crucial for British cotton trade
- Construction began in 1856, involving 25 tunnels and eight masonry viaducts
- About 25,000 laborers worked under harsh conditions with high death rates
In the mid-19th century, few commodities mattered more to the British Empire than cotton, often referred to as "white gold". The only obstacle standing between the East India Company and the cotton-rich Deccan plateau - regions such as Solapur and Nagpur - was a steep, unforgiving stretch of the Sahyadri range separating Bombay from Poona: the Bhor Ghat.
Roads through the region were unreliable, regularly washed out by the monsoon. A railway line would solve this and also open up a direct route linking Bombay to Poona, and from there to Calcutta, Madras and Delhi - a network that promised to transform trade across the subcontinent. There was just one problem: the terrain was extremely difficult.
Designing The Impossible Railway Line
The task fell to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway in 1852, under Chief Resident Engineer James John Berkley, the same engineer who had overseen India's first railway stretch, from Bombay to Thane, completed in 1853. According to livehistoryindia, Berkley's team spent four years surveying possible routes, producing roughly 3,000 maps, drawings and cross-sections before settling on the Bhor Ghat alignment.
The scale of the project was unlike anything attempted before it: 25 tunnels, eight arched masonry viaducts, and an estimated 54 million cubic feet of rock cut by hand.
Miserable Working Conditions With Risk To Life
Work began in January 1856, and problems followed almost immediately. Berkley's health deteriorated, reportedly due to the tropical climate and the physical toll of the project, forcing his return to England. His successor, contractor William Faviell, brought a reputation for treating labourers harshly - a factor that, according to livehistoryindia, contributed to worker unrest during the Revolt of 1857.
At the project's peak, roughly 25,000 labourers - men, women and children - worked the site using little more than bare hands and rudimentary tools, with limited access to clean drinking water.
Malaria and cholera spread easily through the workforce. The physical risks were severe: labourers were lowered by rope down sheer cliff faces to drill into rock, with falls into the gorge below a constant danger. Blasting operations, falling debris, cave-ins and unstable slopes added further hazard.
Over the roughly eight years it took to complete the project, an estimated 24,000 workers are believed to have died.
Unrest, Riots, No Wages
Tensions boiled over in January 1859, when the project's financial backers - frustrated by slow progress and rising costs - insisted on halving the wages already owed to workers, some of whom had gone months without pay. In response, labourers confronted British overseers on site with sticks and stones, and were pacified only once additional payment was promised.
British engineers, angered by the riot, moved to arrest suspected instigators among the workforce, triggering further clashes. In the aftermath, a British overseer named Mr Curran was found dead, shot through the head. The incident triggered a formal inquiry, and Faviell resigned from the project shortly after.
His replacement, contractor Solomon Tredwell, died within days of arriving on site, likely of cholera.
His wife, Alice Tredwell, subsequently took over management of the project - a notable, if often overlooked, footnote in the railway's history. By 1861-62, the workforce had swelled to around 42,000 labourers, and the incline was finally completed in April 1863.
India Entering 'Railway Age', But At What Cost?
The line's official opening was marked with a grand ceremony at Khandala on April 21, 1863, attended by the Governor of Bombay, Sir Bartle Frere, who declared that India had entered the "railway age."
His remarks framed British rule as a force that had moved India from bullock carts to steam locomotives, without the mention of the thousands of Indian labourers who had died building it.
A Tragedy Worth Remembering
Experts note that the story of the Bhor Ghat also lends historical weight to present-day projects like the Mumbai-Pune Missing Link corridor - a reminder that this stretch of the Western Ghats has posed a formidable engineering challenge for well over 150 years.
