{"id":24280,"date":"2019-11-07T14:47:13","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T19:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianeagle.com\/travelbeats\/?p=24280"},"modified":"2019-11-07T15:30:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:30:39","slug":"indian-railways-toilets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indianeagle.com\/travelbeats\/indian-railways-toilets\/","title":{"rendered":"An Indian\u2019s Hilarious Letter in Broken English Helped Get Toilets on Trains in British India"},"content":{"rendered":"
Indian Railways, the world\u2019s fourth largest railway network and eighth largest employer as of 2017, did supposedly take the first step towards mitigating open defecation in British India<\/strong>. We do all know that the British had introduced railways in the colonized India, but what many of us don\u2019t know is who was responsible for the introduction of toilets on trains in India.<\/p>\n The first commercial train journey in (British) India took place between Bombay and Thane in 1853. The 14-carriage passenger train deployed for achieving the first historic milestone in becoming the transport lifeline of India had its debut run without a toilet back then. Passenger trains were equipped with toilets after the railway network had gradually spread to the erstwhile provinces<\/strong> of Bengal, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan over a period of five to six decades.<\/p>\n If Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor General of India, is hailed as the father of Indian Railways, the father of toilets in railways is a dhoti-clad Indian named Okhil Chandra Sen from the then undivided Bengal (Bengal Presidency).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n