Decades old, heritage power substation at Kurla pulled down

The power substation at Kurla had supplied power to the first electric train in India

Three days after commemorating 97 years of India's first electric train, Central Railway Mumbai on Sunday started the process of pulling down the electric substation that had powered it, to make way for a new rail corridor. The substation in Kurla was one of the last remaining vestiges of the industrial heritage of the country's first electric railway.

mid-day had, in an article in September 2021, highlighted how Indian Railways' oldest electric power substations at Kurla and Wadi Bunder that powered the first electric train were in ruins. As promised, the Central Railway on Sunday segregated some part of the old equipment from the site to be saved at the heritage gallery.

India's first electric train had run between Mumbai CSMT, which was then called Bombay Victoria Terminus, and Kurla, then spelt Coorla, on the harbour line on February 3, 1925. Power for the services was supplied by the Tata Hydro-Electric Power Supply Company and the first substations. The substations at Wadi Bunder near Sandhurst Road and Kurla are the remains of this legacy.

The first Electric Multiple Unit local train service with four cars was flagged off by then Bombay Governor Sir Leslie Orme Wilson and the first motorman was Jahangir Framji Daruwala. Though the process of electrification of the railway was being considered since 1904, it was only in 1925 that the first electric railway train ran, delayed due to the First World War and subsequent developments. The Kurla substation is being demolished for the elevated harbour line corridor for the new fifth and sixth lines on the Thane-Diva section.

Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said, "We have identified certain old equipment to be moved to the heritage gully at Mumbai CSMT. Only 25 per cent of the direct current old traction substation, that is infringing on the new lines, is being dismantled. We will restore the old crane in the loading bay and try to place it in the heritage gully."

3 Feb
Day the first electric train ran in India