Jamalpur Locomotive Workshop is a railway workshop established on February 8, 1862 as the first fully-fledged railway workshop facility in India. It was started by the East Indian Railway Company (EIR) as a result of the so-called "Railway Age" in India, which began in 1854.
A locomotive, carriage, and wagon workshop had been set up in Howrah to put imported rolling stock into service for the EIR and also to carry out repairs. This workshop was unsuccessful, partly because of problems procuring supplies and sourcing enough skilled labor. Within eight years of its establishment in Howrah, the workshop was closed, and the Jamalpur Workshop was established at Jamalpur.
History
Jamalpur Workshop enjoys the distinction of being the largest and the oldest locomotive repair workshop with the most diversified manufacturing activities on the Indian Railways. At first, the Jamalpur shops were merely repairing locomotives and also assembling locomotives from parts salvaged from other or damaged locomotives. By the turn of the 20th century, ,they had progressed to producing their own locomotives. In 1899, CA 764 Lady Curzon was produced by the Jamalpur Workshop. In 1893, the first railway foundry in India was set up at Jamalpur Workshop. It also had a boiler workshop for repairing and building boilers. A 5 MVA captive power plant was also developed in the Jamalpur Workshop. In 1870, it was equipped with a rolling mill of its own, which currently no longer works. In addition to various repairs of wagons, coaches, cranes, tower cars, and locomotives, Jamalpur also undertakes the repair and production of permanent-way fixtures. It also manufactures some tower cars such as Mark II, Mark III and break-down cranes of 10, 20, and 140 tonne capacities, besides various kinds of heavy-duty lifting jacks.
Finally, it also manufactures wheel sets for coaches and wagons. Jamalpur Workshop was a significant supplier of cast-iron sleepers as well. Starting in 1961 it produced several rail cranes. It has also produced electric arc furnaces and ticket printers. The high-capacity synchronized lifting jacks known as Jamalpur jacks were also produced by this workshop.
The school attached to the Jamalpur workshops eventually became the IR Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.
Jamalpur as a site for EIR's Locomotive Workshops
The place was adjacent to Munghyr (now Munger), which was at that time considered to be Birmingham of the East. There was a plentiful supply of skilled mechanics from Munghyr, because the inhabitants of Munghyr had been the mechanics by trade for centuries, manufacturing iron wares, guns, pistols, spears and other works.
When the selection was made it was probably thought that Jamalpur would be on the proposed mainline of EIR which was subsequently changed and was directed to Delhi via Ranigunj, Gaya, Mughalsarai, Allahabad and, Kanpur. Initially, Jamalpur was only an engine changing station and ,light repairs were done in the running shed there. The original headquarters of the locomotive department of EIR was situated at Howrah but had a great drawback because it was too confined for extensions as and when needed. At Howrah, the original workshop was supposed to handle the building of locomotives, carriages and wagons.
Statistics
Achievements
Jamalpur workshop is the only workshop in Indian Railways that has a 5 MVA captive power house The workshop has a number of FIRSTS in India to its credit, a few of which are The first to manufacture a steam locomotive and a locomotive boiler – 216 of which were manufactured between 1899 and 1923. The first to have set up a rolling mill not only on the railways, but probably in the country in 1870. It had 3 mills, steam driven Power hammer, fish plate machine, billet shears, the mill was driven by steam from boilers placed on the top of the furnaces and heated by gas from the furnaces. It produced about 400 tons of rounds, channels, angles and fishplates per month The first to establish a railway foundry in the year 1893 The first to manufacture a rail crane in the country with indigenous know-how in 1961. The first to manufacture high capacity electrical lifting jacks and ticket printing, ticket chopping, ticket slitting and ticket counting machines. The first and the only railway workshop to manufacture electrical arc furnaces of ½ tonne capacity in 1961 for production of steel castings. The first to establish a Signal Equipment shop, more popularly known as "Points and Crossing and Interlocking shop" which was started in 1894. It produced all the interlocking frames of different sizes for the E The first and only to manufacture 140 tonne diesel break-down cranes.