First Train in Fazilka Railway Station, Fazilka-Rewari Railway Line
The railways came to Fazilka in 1898, about forty five year after the first trip by steam locomotion was demonstrated from Boribunder to Thane in Maharashta in 1853. The bb & CI (Bombay Baroda & Central Indian Railways) crossed over the Thar desert to this wool town for profitting
on the goods transportation. The company built a simple and functional railway station with platform to suite the I m gauge. The broad gauge (1.676m) tracked arrived as the general policy of the British after the diomand jubilee of the Queen Victoria (1890) for intense long range commercial growth in the form of network of irrigation and rail transportation facility. Fazilka was on the river bank and the T junction which took off from the grand trunk rail track from Calcutta to Peshawar at Ludhiana all the way was laid upto Hyderabad without any major bridge or civil engineering works which usually delay the laying of rail track. (The presently built Konkan Railways. Inaugurated on may 19, 1998 had enormous and challenging task in building bridges and tunnels on its tracks besides the political hurdles before it become operational) The gradual gradient 1:5000 Of the plains of the Punjab to coast of the Arabian Sea probably was something a railway planning commission wish as to demonstrate the quickness with the track could be laid. In 1827, the East India Company requsted the Sarkar-e-Khalsaji to allow them to study the navigational possibilities in sutlej (which was refused judiciously by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, After annexation of the Punjab in 1849they lost no time in lying a rail track parallel to the riverine course of Sutlej upto Karachi with one river crossing at Hyderabad-Karachi section. Now the track from Samasatta to Karachi is a double lane heavily trafficked route for transport of goods and passengers in Pakisthan.
A Scene at Present Fazilka Railway Station
Fazilka become a junction station without having any platform for the broad gauge and the trains from Ludhiana to Karachi could pass via firozpur, Fazilka, Amruka, Mcleodganj Road, Minchinabad, Bahawalpur, Samasatta, Khanpur, Rahimyarkhan, Rohri,, Nawabshah, Hyderabad and cross over the Indus river to Karachi. Fazilka provided the raw material for finished products to British factories. Raw wool collected from the tribal groups of Thar desert was dispatched to England via Karachi. For high quality cotton and wool several ginning and pressing factories cropped up which are working to this date. The name, PAICH or Screw, by which these factories were called in the local lingua was probably due to simple screw presses used for this purpose of pressing in 1900 or so. This was before the arrival of patent BRAMAH press along with the steam prime mover. West’s patent press installed in front of the present fire Briadge Bulding was one such factory which served the packing of raw wool and cotton for traders of Fazilka. Ram press is another old factory which is still operational.
Source: Fazilka - The Town of the Learned by Dr. Bhupinder Singh
