Introduction

According to W. J. Macpherson, in his succinct assessment of Indian railway investment over the period 1845–75, the Government of India (GOI) wanted railways for ‘social, economic, and perhaps mainly military reasons’. The stimulus for strategic railways in Macpherson's earlier period was the trauma of the Sikh wars and crucially, the Indian Mutiny. Inadequate troop transportation was said to have made the British response to the Mutiny slow and inadequate. Over time the strategic rationale for railway construction shifted from Indian security concerns to the external threat of foreign invasion. This prompted continued expenditure on strategic railways, with a focus on the Afghan and Persian border areas, where the Russian threat was most prominent. Further, Burma presented concerns about the prospect of joint Russian/French incursions, especially after their alliance of the 1890s, requiring railways to transport troops and supplies.

While the GOI sought to distinguish between ‘productive’ railways, which would meet financial targets, and ‘protective’ lines which had military or famine-protective qualities, the distinction was less clear cut. Private-sector rail companies generated revenues from troop and material transport, paid for by the army, while state-owned military railways performed a ‘development’ role in the north of India. Indeed, over the period 1889–94, only 8.5 per cent of revenues from government-defined ‘military railways’ came from military traffic. In times of peace, the railways had no need to transport troops and provisions.