Mysore State Railway (MSR) was a railway which operated in

Mysore state Mysore State, colloquially Old Mysore, was a state within the Dominion of India and the later India, Republic of India from 1947 until 1956. The state was formed by renaming the Kingdom of Mysore, and Bangalore replaced Mysore as the state's c ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. MSR became a part of Southern Railway on 14 April 1951.

History

In 1879, the

Madras Railway The Madras Railway (full name Madras Railway Company) played a pioneering role in developing railways in southern India and was merged in 1908 with Southern Mahratta Railway to form Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway. The Madras Railway was ...

Company Constructed a railway line from Madras Royapuram to Bangalore city. At that time, Maharaja of Mysore established a separate railway organization to carryout extension from Bangalore to Mysore. This establishment came to be known as Mysore State Railway. Mysore-Nanjangud of 25.51 km was opened for traffic in 1891. Birur-Shimoga section of 60.74 km was opened for traffic in 1899. Another important line was Yeshvantpur-Hindupur which was opened for traffic in 1892-93. In 1911-12 the Mysore Government decided the formation of the State Railway Construction Department and it was put under the control of Mr. E.A.S. Bell, Engineer in chief. The

Shimoga Shimoga, officially known as Shivamogga, is a city and the district headquarters of Shimoga district in the central part of the state of Karnataka, India. The city lies on the banks of the Tunga River. Being the gateway for the hilly region of ...

- Talaguppa section was laid in 1930. In 1951, it merged with

Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway The Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway was a railway company that operated in southern India. It was founded on 1 January 1908 by merging the Madras Railway and the Southern Mahratta Railway. Initially, its headquarters was at Royapuram in Ma ...

to form the Southern Railway. The Mysore State Railway started laying the Shivamogga–Talaguppa line in the year 1930 to provide access to Jog Falls. Another purpose was to transport wooden logs from the forests of the Malnad region to make wooden sleepers and also to be used as a fuel in the furnaces of the

Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Limited Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant (VISL), a unit of Steel Authority of India Limited, is a plant involved in the production of alloy steels and pig iron. It is located in the city of Bhadravathi, India. It was started as the ''Mysore Iron Works ...

at Bhadravathi. In 1938, Mirza Ismail took the maiden journey on this line to visit Sagara city. The final section of the line from Sagara to Talaguppa was inaugurated on 9 November 1940. Some of the prominent people who have used this line to visit Jog Falls include

Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV (Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar; 4 June 1884 – 3 August 1940) was the twenty-fourth maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore, from 1902 until his death in 1940. He is popularly called ''Rajarshi'' ( sa, rājarṣi, ...

Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (18 July 1919 – 23 September 1974) was the 25th Maharaja of Mysore from 1940 to 1950, who later served as the governor of Mysore and Madras states. Early life Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar was born on 18 July 1919 at M ...

Sir M. Visvesvaraya Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya (15 September 1861 – 12/14 April 1962), also referred to by his initials, MV, was an Indian civil engineer, administrator, and statesman, who served as the 19th Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918. Visvesvaraya i ...

Lal Bahadur Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri (; 2 October 1904 – 11 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 2nd Prime Minister of India from 1964 to 1966 and 6th Home Minister of India from 1961 to 1963. He promoted the White Re ...

and

Morarji Desai Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (29 February 1896 – 10 April 1995) was an Indian independence activist and politician who served as the 4th Prime Minister of India between 1977 to 1979 leading the government formed by the Janata Party. During his ...

. Socialist leader,

Ram Manohar Lohia Ram Manohar Lohia ; (23 March 1910 – 12 October 1967) was an activist in the Indian independence movement and a socialist political leader. During the last phase of British rule in India, he worked with the Congress Radio which was broadcast ...

travelled in a train on this line to participate in the '' Kagodu Satyagraha'' but was arrested at

Sagara Sagara may refer to: People * Sagara (ethnic group), a people of Tanzania * Sagara (Vedic king), Ikshvaku dynasty * Sagara clan, a clan of 16th century Japan * Sekihotai (Sagara Souzou), a leader of the Sekihotai military unit during the Boshin ...

station. In 1990s, the train on the Shivamogga-Talaguppa line was replaced by a

railcar A railcar (not to be confused with a railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a dri ...

. The railcar could accommodate 52 passengers and took 3:45 hours to cover the distance of 82 km, a journey which took considerably lesser time to cover by road. It was one of the few trains with conductors on board and tickets could be bought on the train itself, whereas the normal practice followed in

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tota ...

, was that passengers should buy tickets before boarding a train. Once the railcar reached Talaguppa, the rail car had to be reversed using a

turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, so that it could start its return journey.

Rolling stock

In 1936, the company owned 39 locomotives, 216 coaches and 754 goods wagons.

Classification

It was labeled as a Class II railway according to Indian Railway Classification System of 1926. Later, it was classified as Class I.

Conversion to broad gauge

The Bangalore-Shimoga line was converted to

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union ( C ...

starting from late 1990s to early 2000s. Finally, the Shimoga-Talaguppa line was converted to

in 2007.

References

{{coord missing, Karnataka Metre gauge railways in India Defunct railway companies of India Rail transport in Karnataka Transport in Mysore Railway companies established in 1879 Railway companies disestablished in 1951 1891 establishments in British India 1951 disestablishments in India Mysore railway division Shimoga Indian companies established in 1879