200 years of making tracks

Two hundred years after the first train plied, train travel endures despite being written off every now and then. The sway of carriages, the changing scenery through the windows and chance encounters make it the most enchanting form of travel

- Anita Rao Kashi

On a nippy, grey December morning in 2024, I joined a motley bunch of strangers at Bengaluru's Sangolli Rayanna Railway Station for a trip to four colonial-era railway stations on the Bengaluru-Kolar line, organised by the Bengaluru chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), a nonprofit that works to protect heritage.

Laid around 1915 by the British, the line was a thriving commercial conduit but the stations had run to seed over time, until Intach stepped in four years ago and began restoring them with the help of local businesses and communities.

Over two hours, we hopped off and on to see the results of the restoration at Dodjala, Devanahalli and Avatihalli stations. All three are small stone structures with sloping Mangalore-tile roofs, wooden rafters, overhangs and stone columns, depicting a mix of colonial and local traditions, including the monkey top, the pointed window decorations that are a distinctive feature of Bengaluru's colonial architecture. But it is at the last stop-Nandi Halt-that the colonial features are more pronounced. It is a big, rectangular stone building with an arched entry passage flanked by a few rooms which probably served as waiting rooms. The ticket counter is tucked away in a corner, where old-fashioned, pre-printed tickets are still issued from an Edmondson ticket machine.

The trip feels fortuitous, since 27 September this year marks the 200th anniversary of the first ever public train run-from Stockton to Darlington in Northern England. It's a short journey, about 40km, but it set off rumbles in every direction that are reverberating till today. It's a legacy that the British empire left wherever it went.

British author and railway historian Christian Wolmar in his book