Baobab: Cherra-Therria-Dwara Railway

1886-Cherrapunjee Mountain Railway lines: Cherrapunjee-Companyganj State Railway (1886-1901). (Cherrapunjee Mountain Railway - 1884-1886) builds line from Companyganj to Therria Ghat and across it to Cherrapunjee with 7 gradients worked by rope mechanisms.

1891-Cherrapunjee Mountain Railway. Rope-worked section over Therria Ghat of Cherrapunjee-Companyganj State Railway was dismantled.

Situated on the southern side of the Khasi Hills, starting at Companyganj (now in Bangladesh) on the Piyain river, a navigable tributary of the Surmah river. The line ran almost 7 miles northwards to Therria Ghat, in the foothills of the Cherrapunjee plateau. The next section was a 4 mile mountain section made up of 7 rope worked inclines with a rise of 3,616 feet. The final section was a 3.5 mile locomotive worked terminus at Cherrapunji. The line was renamed when the section to Therria Ghat opened to traffic. The incline never worked satisfactorily so this section and the section to Cherrapunji were never opened to traffic. With the earthquake in 1897 and the severe flooding in 1899, the line was eventually abandoned in 1901.

The Cherrapunjee-Companyganj State Railway was a contemporary to the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and operated for at least 10 years[1]. Passengers and goods were ferried between Therria and Companyganj. The distance of this journey was 7.5 miles. The railway connected Sylhet province with the Cherrapunjee hills and an extension upto Shillong was contemplated. The Therria to Companyganj section was opened for the public and subsequently the section upto Mawsmai was completed by 1887. But, owing to the difficult inclines of the Therria-Mawsmai section, attempts to run carriages failed. The Therria-Companygunj sections continued operations. The railway was destroyed in the Earthquake of 1897.

Dwara-Therria Light Railway

It was felt necessary that in future a clause, may be inserted for acquiring land for railways[2]. Helen Giri refers to two petitions from the Sirdars and others of Mawlong for the acquisition of certain lands in that State for the construction of Dwara Therria Railway. As an answer to the petitions, the Government of India stated that the Government would have the right to require Native Khasi States to surrender lands for the construction of railways and would not be bound to pay compensation or to make railway companies to pay compensation for such lands, but would only do so at its discretion in exceptional cases.

The Government upheld that the objection of the Sirdars were entirely untenable and the fact that the land taken up for the Ichamati Terminus should or should not be given back to the State and that too, would depend on the orders passed on the cause, according to the notice served to them. It was further suggested that although the orders of the Government of India afforded sufficient authority for the acquisition of lands in Khasi State for railway purposes, it would appear desirable that for wide information of the Syiems and others concerned, specified provisions to this effect shall be embodied in their Sanads.

Dwara-Therria Light Railway (Gauge: 2'6")[3] was a line authorised to run from Dwara Bazar northeastwards to Therria Ghat, a station on the Cherra-Companyganj State Railway. The main traffic was to be limestone. The promoter died in 1904 and the company building the line went into liquidation in 1909. All of the locomotives and rolling stock were brought by the Dehri Rotas Light Railway (Bihar) in 1911. The locomotives were supplied by George Yule & Co.

In 1897, while surveying the damage after the earthquake, La Touché came across a Mr. Peters, a 'half caste' who was in charge of the little railway at the foot of the hill, and who lived in a bungalow about half way up. He told La Touché that that he had two or three narrow escapes from boulders crashing down[4].

Luckily La Touche met him at the foot of the hill and he lent him his trolley to go out to Bhologanj where he was to get his boats. The river was in high flood at the foot of the hill and was washing over the railway embankment in several places. In one place the rails were hanging in the air, but the trolley went over without accident, and in another the water was so deep over the rails that it came up more than a foot over the footboard of the trolley. The coolies had great difficulty in getting over these bad places but they all arrived soon after la Touche.

In 1907 Octavius Steel & Co. of Calcutta promoted the Dehri Rohtas Tramway Company to construct a 24-mile line. However in 1909 the project was upgraded to a Light Railway so that the promoters could purchase the stock of the Dwara-Therria Light Railway, then in liquidation.

A light railway was also under construction from Duwara Bazar on the Surma river to the Maolong coal fields in the Khasi Hills[5]. For a distance of about 8 miles down the face of the Khasi Hills, which here rose very sharply from the plains, the track was not fit for wheeled traffic. Companyganj-Therriaghat State Railway ran for 8 miles. It was originally intended to carry this line up the face of the hill to Cherrapunji, but the cost was found to be prohibitive. It was wrecked by the earthquake of 1897, and since has been abandoned.

Dwara Bazar

In 1906, Dwara Bazar was a market village in the Sunamganj subdivision of Sylhet District, Eastern Bengal and Assam, situated on the north bank of the Surma river. It has a large export trade to Bengal in lime, bay leaves, and oranges. Dwara Bazar was the river terminus of a small railway which was being constructed from this point to Ischamati, to afford an outlet for the coal found in the Khasi Hills.

Meghalaya had railway connectivity some 130 years ago[6]. In Meghalaya where roadways are the main lifeline, villagers in Tharia, a hamlet near Cherrapunjee, experienced their first train ride to Companyganj in Sylhet on 16 June 1886. Covering a distance of 7.5 miles, the Cherra Companyganj State Railways (CCSR) connected Companyganj and Cherra with a railway line. The CCSR earned Rs 4,734 in its first year of service and the amount went up to Rs 7,490 in 1890. The total cost for laying the track was Rs. 8 lakh and was incurred by the erstwhile provincial Government of Assam.

In 1891, the rope-worked section over Therria Ghat of Cherra-Companyganj State Railways was dismantled[7]. Stray moments of history is still alive in the folklore of the ‘Drum’, labouring up the hills like the tired clouds of these hills[8]. This is the saga of a failed and forgotten project of a bygone era. Like the clouds, the ‘Drum’ too wanted to climb higher and higher up from the Sylhet plains to Cherrapunjee.

The locals here fondly romanticise this story of ‘Alan Sahep’ and his dream to bring the ‘Drum’ to Cherrapunjee in the late 1800s, in an almost forgotten folklore. According to Sohbar villagers, Alan Sahep committed suicide after his project failed. The story of Alan Sahep’s ‘Drum’ has been handed down the generations.

In 1895-96, the British Provincial Government of Composite Assam constructed the Cherra Companyganj State Railways (CCSR). The ‘Drum’ was in fact a Tramway of 2’–6” gauge. CCSR was a feeder line to transport passengers and goods between Cherrapunjee to Sylhet. For Alan Sahep and his men the biggest challenge was to bring the Tramway atop the Shillong plateau which juts treacherously from the Sylhet plains at an incline of 3,616 feet, especially between Tharia to Mawsmai through thick jungle and gushing waterfalls.

So steep are the inclines that the clouds hit the southern face of the Khasi Hills causing the heaviest rainfall on earth. Nonetheless, Alan Sahep surveyed and managed to identify friendly inclines and lay down tracks. CCSR had three sections: Companyganj to Tharia - Tharia to Mawsmai - Mawsmai to Cherrapunjee. But, owing to the difficult inclines of the second section (Tharia-Mawsmai) attempts to run carriages in this section failed.

At last, after much hesitation, the provincial government of Assam decided on the closure of CCSR in 1891. It did however allow the Companyganj to Tharia (first section) to run after completion. So on 16 June 1886, people from this quaint station, undertook a memorable journey aboard one of the most romantic Mountain Railways of the world between Tharia and Companyganj – a distance of 7.5 miles.

CSSR at the end of its first year of service in 1887, earned Rs. 4,734. It doggedly toiled on to increase its earnings to Rs. 7,490 by 1890, But after 10 years, the earthquake of 1897 destroyed this section, consigning the CCSR to the pages of history.

Now a trek through this forgotten legacy opens up an isolated, but, amazing wonderland. Remains of railway bridges, ancient stone ramps and scrapped bits of history are still found in nearby villages. In Sohbar village for instance, scrapped rail tracks are now used as lamp posts.

Still there are many more pieces of the jigsaw that need to be put in place to get the complete picture. Many more questions relating to this amazing journey of ‘Alan Sahep’s Drum’ and his men, are yet to be answered. Sometime ago, there was a piece called “Train to Cherrapunjee!” on the front page of The Assam Tribune by Raju Das[9]. The writer had commendably tried to acquaint the readers of a forgotten piece of railway history, now embodied in local lore. The project in its totality has been described in length in the book Indian Railways – The Final Frontier, culled from British railway records available in the National archives and the Railway Museum archives in New Delhi and the State archives of Assam.

These records reveal that there was an attempt in the 1880s to link Shillong, then the capital of undivided Assam, via Cherrapunjee to Sylhet (now in Bangladesh) and onto Calcutta, then the capital of British India. This might appear today to have been a foolhardy endeavour, given the precipitous nature of the terrain leading from the Meghalaya plateau to the plains of Bangladesh. But this in no way diminishes the attempt at grandeur, nor detracts from the ingenuity of those who failed to translate the concept into reality.

Not many of us know that a 3.5 mile long railway track had actually been laid from Cherrapunjee to Mawsmai. Within the current geo-political context, with the later-formed Bangladesh intervening between the North-East and the rest of India, it is difficult for the modern mind to comprehend why the concept was mooted at all. But it must be recalled that in the 19th century no such geo-political barriers existed, and to the British eyes the shortest route to Calcutta from Shillong was via Eastern Bengal.

If Shillong was to be rail-linked to calcutta, the obvious route was by Cherrapunji to Mawsmai, a rope-tramway down the 4,100 feet escarpment to the village of Therria in Eastern Bengal and onto Companygunj to connect to Sylhet and Goalundo, from where rail service to Calcutta already existed. That the 4,100 feet separating Mawsmai from Therria constituted a sheer drop over craggy terrain was no deterrent to individuals with imagination and enterprise.

From very early days a narrow mule-track (bridle path) had existed between Sylhet and Cherrapunjee. When the British annexed the Khasi Hills in mid 19th century, their soldiers had come by this track. Their first base was Cherrapunjee and only in 1864 did they shift headquarters to Shillong. When, in 1874, Assam was separated from Bengal and given the status of a Province of British India, Shillong was chosen to be the capital.

With the same objective of providing the shortest access to Calcutta, at first, from 1861-1864, there was an attempt to transform the mule-track into a cart-road, but due to the steepness of the cliffs the project was finally abandoned as impracticable. Another attempt, from 1867-1891, which led to the squandering of Rs. 5 lakhs, met a similar fate. The Executive Engineer, Mr. H. Kench, ruminated over the problem and came up with a solution.

Kench’s Trace

We do not know much about Mr. H Kench. There is one reference to Mr.H Kench, Executive Engineer, in the Gazettes, under the PWD, Upper Burma, 7 January 1888[10]. On 16 December 1887, he was in the 4^th grade, temporary rank, reported his arrival at Mandalay on the forenoon of 27^th, and was posted to the Ruby Mines Division. Kench’s Trace in Shillong could well be attributed to Mr. H. Kench, however we do not know for sure where Kench’s Trace led. From available maps of the time, I have re-'traced' (see my diagram below) the probable route and it would appear that Kench’s Trace was designed to link Shillong with Sohra Rim.

On 2 January 1883, Kench put forward his proposal “for a wire-rope tramway or rather, series of tramways to be worked on the very precipitous descent below Cherrapunjee in the road between Shillong and the Sylhet District.” Attached to the proposal was a persuasive note:

“At Pittsburgh, America, there is a passenger incline much used, which ascends 400 feet in a length of 793 feet. It is worked on the balance system, one carriage descending balancing the other ascending, the motive power overcoming friction being a stationary engine.... A line 5000 feet long has been made up Mount Vesuvius. In construction it resembles the Fell system and is worked by 2 ropes passing over a pulley at the top of the incline and down to a stationary engine at the foot, the ropes being 10,000 feet long each. In Brazil the San Paulo railway ascends steep slopes about 2,500 feet high by 4 inclines, each from 6,000 to 7,000 feet long, worked by wire ropes and stationary engines”.

The above quoted lines are on a much larger scale than was required or proposed between Cherra and Therria Ghat. The actual descent between Cherra and Therria Ghat was about 4,100 feet. 3 miles will be on the plateau, the road falling 600 feet in this distance and the remaining 3,500 feet along the steep hillside. A road being unsuitable for the traffic it was proposed to substitute for it a series of straight-railed inclines worked by wire-ropes....Seeing that the tramway was designed to transport 1,000 maunds up daily in 10 hours, and 1,500 maunds down, the total length of the lines was 3 miles 923 yards and the height ascended 3,470 feet...

Till then the only hill-railway in India was the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, completed in 1881, a conventional system running along a cart-road. Here at least 3,500 feet would have to be ascended within 4 miles. How far Kench’s concept was ahead of its times can be judged from the fact that the Nilgiri hill-railway was laid only in 1899, Simla in 1903 and Matheran in 1907.

The administration conceded the feasibility of the project, but suggested that the line be continued from Therria Ghat to Companygunj (7½ miles) on the bank of the more easily navigable Piyain river, and also from Mawsmai to Cherra, and then possibly along the existing cart-road to Shillong. Even as the proposal was being processed by British bureaucrats in Calcutta, Kench and his men began opening out a ribbony route across the cliff-side, no mean feat under the circumstances, and further survey and measurements of this route enabled them to give greater details of the proposed wire-rope tramway to be laid on 2’6" gauge.

The Government of India accorded general approval to the plan on 18 December 1883, but actual sanction for the amounts proposed for the 3 sections (Cherra-Mawmai, incline-section and Therria-Companygunj) was granted in 14 June 1887.

So confident were they of the workability of the project that Kench and his men completed the Therria-Companygunj section even before the inclines had been tested, purchased rolling stock and hired staff. On 6 June 1886, the first section of what was now labelled as the Cherra-Companygunj State Railway was put into active operation, being opened for goods and passenger traffic. They also laid 3½ miles from Mawsmai at the top of the inclines towards Cherrapunjee. Unfortunately, even after a titanic effort to properly align the inclines they failed to do so and, the project was abandoned.

The Theria-Companyganj line (8 miles) in Sylhet was purely State Railways, constructed by Government without the intervention of private capital[11]. An attempt to extend the line from Theriaghat at the foot of the Shillong plateau to Cherrapunji at its summit, by means of a series of inclines, was unsuccessful, but the plains portion was still worked. It more than pays for the cost of its upkeep, and it is not unlikely that it would, sooner or later, be extended to Chhatak on the Surma river (this however, did not eventuate).

Near Bholaganj, the Komorrah-Chhatak Ropeway still exists[12]. Near Barsora (Khasi Hills), there is a trolley track from Cherragaon quarry (India) to Cherragaon (Bangladesh) dumping ground in Bangladesh. In the same area, there is another trolley track from Chalitacherra quarry to Samsar in Bangladesh. There is yet another trolley track from Gauripur (India) quarry to Samsar in Bangladesh.