Patiala State Monorail Trainways

Patiala State Monorail Trainways

Patiala State Monorail train at National Rail Museum, New Delhi
Overview
Locale	Patiala State
Transit type	Monorail
Number of lines	2
Operation
Began operation	February 1907
Ended operation	1927
Technical
System length	50 mi (80 km)

Patiala State Monorail Trainways (PSMT) was a unique rail-guided, partially road-borne railways system running in Patiala (British India) from 1907 to 1927. PSMT was the second monorail system in India, after the Kundala Valley Railway, and the only operational locomotive-hauled railway system built using the Ewing System in the world. The Kundala Valley Railway pre-dated this, also using the Ewing system between 1902 and 1908, although this only used bullocks for haulage. Following the conversion of the Kundala Valley Railway from a monorail to a narrow gauge railway in 1908, PSMT was the only monorail system in India until its closure in 1927. These were the only instances of a monorail train system in India, until the Mumbai Monorail was opened on 2 February 2014.

A locomotive and a coach of PSMT have been restored, are in running condition and are exhibited in the Indian National Rail Museum, New Delhi.

Maharaja Sir Bhupinder Singh of Patiala got this unique railway system constructed to facilitate movement of people and goods in his state. The chief engineer of this project was Colonel C. W. Bowles. Colonel Bowles has earlier successfully used monorail based on Ewing System (designed by William Thorold) during his stint as engineer during laying of tracks for Bengal Nagpur Railway for transportation of construction materials. Maharaja Sir Bhupinder Singh made him chief Engineer for the PSMT project. One of the objects of PSMT was to make use of the 560 mules being maintained by Patiala State. Apart from mules, bullocks were also used to haul the monorail before introduction of steam locomotives on the route of PSMT.

The only published information about PSMT was in a 1908 edition of Imperial Gazetteer of India in which there was a brief mention. The gazetteer simply stated that "a mono-rail tramway, opened in February, 1907, connects Basi with the railway at Sirhind". An ordnance map of 1913 also shows a tramway running along west side of road, but does not mention the PSMT by name. Apart from the above, PSMT has not been mentioned in any official documents of that period in India.