Dalmianagar

Dalmianagar is a town that had one of the oldest and biggest industrial complexes in India. It is situated at Dehri-on-Sone on the banks of the Sone River in Rohtas district of Bihar. This is a city and a Municipality in Rohtas district in the state of Bihar, India, combinedly known as Dehri-Dalmianagar Nagar Palika.

The industrial town of Dalmianagar was founded in 1930s by the industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia, a doyen of business in 20th century India and founder of the Dalmia Group. He was assisted by his younger brother Jaidayal Dalmia and son in law Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain in establishing many factories of Rohtas Industries Ltd. in Dalmianagar.

The foundation stone of the sugar factory was laid in 1933; its machinery was imported from Glasgow, Scotland. Subsequently, the foundation stone of the cement factory was laid in 1937. Its machinery was imported from Denmark, and the plant was inaugurated by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in 1938. Installation of the paper factory commenced almost at the same time and was inaugurated by Babu Rajendra Prasad in 1939. This was soon followed by the establishment of the chemical factory that started operations in 1939; production of caustic soda, bleach liquor and bleaching powder started with the inception of the factory, and of hydrochloric acid and liquid chlorine in 1945 and 1950 respectively.

Rohtas Industries Dalmianagar and Dehri-Rohtas Light Railway

The Dehri Rohtas Light Railway started off as Dehri Rohtas Tramway Company in 1907 promoted by The Octavius Steel and Company of Calcutta. The original contract was to build a 40 km feeder line from Rohtas to the East Indian Railway's Delhi - Calcutta trunk route at Dehri-on-Sone. Soon thereafter, the tramway company was incorporated as a light railway in order to acquire the assets of the then defunct Dwara - Therria Light Railway in Assam. The DRLR opened to traffic in 1911 and was booming by 1913-14 when it carried over 50,000 passengers and 90,000 tons of freight, the goods traffic mainly consisting of marble and stone. In 1927, a 2.5 km spur was added to Rohtasgarh Fort from Rohtas.

Rohtas Industries brought the line up to Tiura Pipradih by adding another 25 km to the DRLR, most of which passed through their property.

The DRLR operated a very mixed bag of locomotives. It started off with 0-6-2 tank locomotives, three of which arrived from the Dwara - Therria Railway after it closed in 1909. In the pre IRS years, it also used 0-6-0, 0-4-0 (Sentinel) and 0-6-4 variants of tank locomotives. After the wartime increase in traffic the railway brought as many as eight new ZB class 2-6-2 tender locomotives, orders for which were equally split between Hudswell Clarke and Krauss Maffei. At its peak, the DRLR used to operate two daily passengers trains in each direction from Dehri-on-Sone and Tiura Pipradih, a run of 67 km. Apart from this the railway carried marble and stone traffic to the mainline at Dehri on sone.

The railway also purchased several locomotives second hand notable among which were the A/1 class 2-8-4 tank locomotives built by Hudswell Clarke that arrived from the Pulgaon - Arvi system of Central Railway in 1959. Other unique locomotives that operated on DRLR were the several ex. Kalka - Simla Railway K class 2-6-2 tank engines by Kerr Stuart and 2-6-4 tank engines by Henschel that arrived from the Shahdara - Saharanpur Light Railway.

Due to the decline in traffic and competition to road in the late 1970s, the DRLR succumbed and closed to traffic on 16 July 1984.

Although the DRLR was a hotspot for narrow gauge enthusiasts from Europe in the 1970s, not much has appeared about it in the media since its closure. Brian Manktelow from London, England decided to unravel the fate of DRLR rolling stock in 1994 and visited the area. Below is a brief trip report:

An unannounced chance visit to the Rohtas Industries works 19 January 1994 proved very fruitful. After making personal contact with the management, we were given permission and a guide to visit all three sites.

settlement type	Town
pushpin map	India Bihar
pushpin label position	right
pushpin map caption	Location in Bihar, India
coordinates	24.88333°N, 84.15°W
subdivision type	Country
subdivision name	🇮🇳 India
subdivision type1	State
subdivision name1	Bihar
subdivision type2	District
subdivision name2	Rohtas
unit pref	Metric
elevation m	67
population total	29962
population as of	2001
population density km2	auto
demographics type1	Languages
demographics1 title1	Main
demographics1 info1	Bhojpuri
timezone1	IST
utc offset1	+5:30
postal code type	PIN
postal code	821305
area code type	Telephone code
area code	06184
blank1 name sec1	Lok Sabha constituency
blank1 info sec1	Karakat
blank2 name sec1	Vidhan Sabha constituency
blank2 info sec1	Dehri-on-Sone

Dalmianagar

Dalmianagar

Rohtas Industries Dalmianagar and Dehri-Rohtas Light Railway

Education

References