Railway Bridge over Jumna at Allahabad.

This photograph was taken by Samuel Bourne in the 1860s to form part of an album entitled 'Photographs of India and Overland Route'. It shows the railway bridge over the river Jumna at Allahabad in the modern-day state of Uttar Pradesh. India’s vast railway network is an enduring legacy of the East India Company. The first train departed on the 16^th April 1853 from Bombay. The London Illustrated News said that the opening of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway was of much greater importance than British ‘victories in battlefields of Plassey, Assaye and Gujarath’. In 1853 there were 32 kilometres of tracks in the country. By 1948 there were nearly 50,000 kilometres.