This photograph shows the Frontier Mail ready for departure from Ballard Pier, Bombay towards Peshawar.
The train was operated by the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway. The distance from Bombay to Peshawar was 2,335 kilometres which the train covered in 72 hours. It once had the claim of being the fastest long-distance train in British India.
In August 1929, 11 months after its inauguration, when the train arrived 15 min late in Peshawar, there was a huge uproar in railway circles, with the driver being asked to explain the reasons for this delay. In 1930, The Times of London described it as ‘one of the most famous express trains within the British Empire.’
The Ballard Pier Mall Station at the Bombay harbour was a convenient point for passengers arriving from England by ship. It was also a pick up spot for mail brought in from Europe.
Over its 20 years of service, the train carried governors and generals, civil servants and soldiers and a multitude of Indians. In 1944, Subhas Chandra Bose used it to escape to Afghanistan en route to Hitler’s Germany. At the same time, Mohammed Rafi boarded its III Class compartment in Lahore to seek his destiny in Bombay.
