The first train in Asia (and India) ran between Bombay to Thana on Saturday, April 16, 1853, at 3:35 pm. The day was declared a public holiday.  Bori Bunder, the point of departure was thronged by a multitude, and bands played and guns were fired from the Fort's ramparts, when at the signaled moment, there steamed out from a tiny wooden station, the little train hauled by three engines that heralded the dawn of the Railway Era in India.

As the years passed, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway expanded.  With the merger of the Indian Midland Railway Company with the G.I.P. Railway Company in 1900, its frontiers were extended from Delhi in the North, Kanpur, and Allahabad in the North-east and Nagpur in the East to Raichur in the South-east.  Thus, a connection from Bombay was obtained to almost all parts of India.  The route mileage of the G.I.P. Railway was 1,600. (2575 km)