History of Jamalpur
Jamalpur which is an important town in Munger, Bihar is best known for the Jamalpur Locomotive Workshop. The establishment of the industrial town dates back to 1862 when Jamalpur Locomotive Workshop came into being. The history of Jamalpur prior to the establishment of Rail locomotive factory is unknown. Though it was part of Bihar and was ruled by various successive dynasties that ruled over Bihar.History of Rail Coach Factory
Jamalpur is not only a city but also a municipality in the Munger district of Bihar state. Jamalpur was established during the period of British Raj. It was at a fair distance from the Bengal and Bihar coalfields and due to this reason, this place was selected for locomotive workshop in the 1860s. This city is famous for the large railway workshop on the East Indian Railway, which employs more than 12,000 people at a time. The Railway Institute was so huge that it had a movie theatre, its own six-lane swimming pool, four tennis courts along with two billiard rooms and also a bowling lawn. Railway folk from all around Jamalpur came to attend its dances.
In Eastern India, the railway age was started on 15th of August 1854 which was approximately ninety years before the Independence of India. A workshop for locomotive, carriage and wagon was established first in Howrah. The railways thus spread very rapidly which was faster than it was anticipated that is within a short period of eight years. Thus there was not much scope for expansion; it became a priority to shift the site of the workshop shop in Howrah to Jamalpur. The British chose Jamalpur town as the new site for the workshop because of the readily available skilled laborers who were none other than the descendants of gun makers and also fabricators of steel weapons who worked for the Nawabs in Bengal and Orissa.
This workshop had a number of specialties to add to its credit for example it was not only the first workshop to manufacture a steam locomotive along with a locomotive boiler but it was also the first one to set up a rolling mill. It was also the first workshop which established a railway foundry in the year 1863.Apart from these, this workshop was also the first one to manufacture a rail crane along with high capacity electrical lifting jacks along with ticket printing, ticket slitting, ticket chopping and ticket counting machines, electrical arc furnaces. It was also the first one to manufacture steel castings and 140 T ART cranes to-day.