Nizam's Guaranteed State Railway

Secunderabad Railway Station (circa 1874)

Kacheguda Railway Station (circa 1922)

Hyderabad Deccan Railway Station (before 1905)

As Hyderabad was one of the largest princely states of India, the 6th Nizam of Hyderabad wanted to build a railway line to connect his realm with the rest of British India (now India). The proposal was for an initial railway line to be built from Secunderabad Railway Station in Hyderabad to Wadi Junction. Nizam agreed to fund the construction expenses for the initial line,[1] leaving subsequent branches to be financed through a variety of means. Construction commenced in 1870, and the Secunderabad-Wadi Line was completed in 1874. Between 1874 and 1889, this line was extended to Kazipet and then to Vijayawada.

In 1879, the Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI took direct control of the company, integrating it into the state bureaucracy as the state-owned Nizam's Guaranteed State Railway.[2][3] This partial-nationalisation was reversed in 1883 when a management company was formed to gradually take over the lines, under the provision of a guarantee from the government of HEH, the Nizam of Hyderabad State.

In 1899, the broad gauge connection between Bezwada (Vijayawada) and Madras (Chennai Central) opened, making rail travel between Hyderabad and Chennai possible. Railroad tracks in the state thus contained 467 miles (752 km) on the broad gauge, all built before 1891, and 391 miles (629 km) on the metre gauge, which were opened between 1899 and 1901. The total capital expenditure on the Nizam's State Railway at the end of 1904 was 4.3 crores. In that year, the net earnings were nearly 28 lakhs, or about 61⁄2 percent of the outlay.

In 1916, another railway terminus, Kachiguda Railway Station, was built to serve as the railway's headquarters.[4] The Nizam's railway was then divided into various, directly owned subcorporations. Each had a head official appointed by the Nizam's Railway. The profits of these rail lines were distributed by the Nizam's Railway.

The Hyderabad-Godavari Valley Railway was a 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge railway. John Wallace Pringle — who had recently completed surveying routes for the Uganda railway[5] — was appointed as the superintending engineer in 1896. The railway opened in 1896, with a 391 miles (629 km) line from Hyderabad city to Manmad Junction. The railway eventually grew to 467 miles (752 km) of 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) gauge track and 391 miles (629 km) of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge track. The Hyderabad-Godavari Valley Railways cost 2.6 crores, and earned 7.7 lakhs net in the same year, or nearly 3 percent. In 1901 and 1902 the earnings were about 31⁄2 percent.

In the early twentieth century, the cotton industry held an important place in Nizam's Hyderabad Government as the largest export of Hyderabad State. In 1889, a cotton spinning mill and a weaving mill were erected in Aurangabad, employing a total of 700 people. In Jalna alone there were 9 cotton ginning factories and five cotton presses, with two more ginning factories at Aurangabad and Kannad. In 1901, the cotton presses and ginning factories employed a total of 1,016 people. The area of cultivated land under cotton in 1914 was three million acres (12,000 km²), with most of the cotton being grown in the Marathwada districts, where the soil was particularly well suited to it.[6]

The opening of the Hyderabad–Godavari Railway in October 1900 led to the growth of the cotton industry in the Nizamabad, Nander, Parbhani and Aurangabad Districts; the line was used to transport the heavy machinery needed to open ginning and pressing factories. Bombay buyers began to arrive in considerable numbers during the cotton season, which lasted from October to December. More land was turned over to growing cotton and machines replaced the traditional hand gins. Grain and pulses became more expensive, with much of the best land used for cotton farming, and Marathwada entered a critical period of its history.[6]

According to a census report from the period: "The evolution from the agricultural to the manufacturing stage has already begun in Marathwada. When a country begins to produce the raw materials of manufacture in place of food crops, it has started on the road to industrialisation." There were three large spinning and weaving mills and about 90 small ginning and pressing factories in the State. In 1914 69,943 people were employed in cotton spinning, sizing, and 517,750 in weaving, cotton ginning, cleaning, and pressing. The wages paid were good, but the cost of living in Marathwara rose significantly due to the rise of the cotton industry, the uncertainty of rainfall, and availability of credit from money lenders.[7]