Shakuntala Railways still operates only one round trip per day on narrow gauge routes.
Between Yavatmal and Murtijapur, there is a 190 km long narrow gauge railway line called Shakuntala Railways that was constructed during the British Raj.
The Indian Railways has grown leaps and bounds in the last few decades, adding rail lines as well as trains. It also takes pride in running one of the biggest railroad systems in the entire world. However, there is one little-known railway line in Maharashtra that is still under a British company and not the Indian government.
Between Yavatmal and Murtijapur, there is a 190 km long narrow gauge railway line called Shakuntala Railways that was constructed during the British Raj. The Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR), which ran throughout Central India during the colonial period, operated trains on this track. Strangely, this route was ignored when the railways was nationalised in 1952. The company that installed the rails in the nineteenth century still owns them. And India still pays the Britishers Rs 1 crore for operating trains here. In 1910, Killick-Nixon, a private British company, founded Shakuntala Railways.
Shakuntala Railways still operates only one round trip per day on narrow gauge routes. Currently, the 190 km journey by railway between Yavatmal and Achalpur in the Amravati district takes about 20 hours. For the underprivileged people who commute between these two villages in Maharashtra, the train is a lifeline. Since it costs about Rs 150 to journey between these two villages in Maharashtra, the train serves as a lifeline for the underprivileged. A ZD-steam engine made in Manchester in 1921 powered the train.
Constructed in Manchester in 1921 and Shakuntala Railways was used from 1923 on for more than 70 years. On April 15, 1994, a diesel motor was installed to replace the original engine. The Central Province Railway Company was established as the result of the company’s joint endeavour with the British colonial administration in India. (CPRC).
The purpose of the narrow gauge railway was to transport cotton from Yavatmal to Mumbai (Bombay), where it was then shipped to Manchester in England. The railway was eventually used to transport people. Surprisingly, Indian Railways continues to pay the British firm more than 1 crore rupees to operate a train on their tracks.
A staff of seven currently performs every railway job, including signalling, ticket sales, and detaching the engine from the carriages. Earlier the former Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu approved 1,500 crore for the conversion of the Yavatmal-Murtizapur-Achalpur railway route from narrow gauge to broad gauge.
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