From Allahabad the East Indian Railway extends through Cawnpore to the heart of the upper Provinces, and at Ghazecabad it meets the Punjaub Railway, whence it is carried to the Great City of Delhi.
At Allahabad it branches off to Jubbulpore, where the line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway is to come from Bombay to meet it. The gap to be filled up is 225 miles, and according to the interesting and instructive report of Mr. Juland Danvers, the Government Director of the Indian Railway Companies, issued in May last, it is fully expected that this gap will be completed for traffic, notwithstanding the difficult and costly character of several of the works upon it, by October or November of next year. Then railway transit from Bombay to Calcutta will be accomplished in forty-four hours;[86] and it is not too much to hope that in two, at all events three years, the present contract time of mails from London to Calcutta, _viâ_ Marseilles, will be reduced from 34 days to 23½ days. If the speed of the steamers which are to carry the Mails between Brindisi and Alexandria were to be twelve knots an hour, and not ten as specified in the invitations for tenders sent out by the Post Office, at the early part of the present year, and the speed of the steamers between Suez and the port of Bombay were increased from 9½ to 10½ knots an hour, a further acceleration of nearly two days to Calcutta would be gained, thereby reducing the time to 21½ days, or 2½ days less than the present contract time between London and _Bombay_, _viâ_ Marseilles. Two to three hours would also be gained by the construction of a great bridge over the Hooghly, thereby extending the East Indian Railway, from its present terminus at Howrah, into Calcutta. Such a work is stated by Mr. Juland Danvers to be, “in the opinion of those best able to judge, imperatively required, in the interests both of the railway company and of the public.” No decision, however, has as yet been come to with reference to its construction being commenced at an early period.
The average cost of the upper portion of the East Indian Railway has been about £15,000 a mile. The lower, or Bengal portion, has been, at least, half as much again. It is expected that the Jubbulpore extension will come to £15,000 a mile, including rolling stock and maintenance of the line and works for a year after opening. The gross traffic earnings[87] during 1866 were £2,012,680, showing an increase of £338,239 as compared with 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865 were 7s. 9d., in 1866, 8s. The expenditure per train mile in 1865 was 3s. 8d., in 1866 a farthing a mile less. The train mileage in the year ending 30th June, 1866, was 4,625,705 miles.[88]