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The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was a predecessor of the Central Railway, whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Mumbai (later, the Victoria Terminus and presently the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus). The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was incorporated on August 1, 1849 by an act of the British Parliament. It had a share capital of 50,000 pounds. on August 17, 1849 it entered into a formal contract with the East India Company for the construction and operation of an experimental line, 56 km long, to form part of a trunk line connecting Bombay with Khandesh and Berar and generally with the other presidencies of India.The Court of Directors of the East India Company appointed James John Berkeley as Chief Resident Engineer and C. B. Kar and R. W. Graham as his assistants. It was India's ever first railway, the original 21 mile (33.8 km) section opening in 1853, between Bombay (Mumbai) and Tannah (Thane). on July 1, 1925 its management was taken over by the Government.On November 5, 1951 it was incorporated into the Central Railway.The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly known as Victoria Terminus in Mumbai, is an outstanding example of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture in India, blended with themes deriving from Indian traditional architecture. The building, designed by the British architect F.W. Stevens, became the symbol of Bombay as the ‘Gothic City’ and the major international mercantile port of India. The terminal was built over ten years starting in 1878 according to a High Victorian Gothic design based on late medieval Italian models. Its remarkable stone dome, turrets, pointed arches, and eccentric ground plan are close to traditional Indian palace architecture. It is an outstanding example of the meeting of two cultures as British architects worked with Indian craftsmen to include Indian architectural tradition and idioms forging a new style unique to Bombay.
Source : Central Railway / Indian Railways Portal CMS Team Last Reviewed : 19-12-2017 
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