Pakistan Railways' steam locomotive SPS 3157 is one of our most remarkable objects. It is simultaneously a superb example of the thousands of railway engines built in Lancashire, a complicated artefact of Britain's colonial past, a witness to the traumatic events of India's Partition, and a machine that touched the lives of thousands of passengers in its nearly 70 years of service.
From North West England to North West India
3157 was built at the Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows, which was established as Charles Tayleur and Company in 1830, during the railway boom triggered by the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
The first locomotives made by Vulcan were for British companies, but they quickly developed an export business. Ultimately, most Vulcan locomotives were sold abroad, many of them to railways in the colonies of the British Empire. In 1853, three locomotives from Vulcan pulled the very first public passenger trains to run in India. Their success helped Vulcan become an important supplier to India. By 1952 Vulcan had built 2,750 locomotives for Indian railways.
Vulcan gallery
A drawing of the Vulcan foundry dated 1840.
Image credit: Alstom
Two trainees from India aligning slidebars at Vulcan, early 1950s.
Image credit: Alstom
Molten metal being poured into moulds in a casting press at Vulcan's Iron foundry, early 1950s.
Image credit: Alstom
Women core-makers in Vulcan's core shop, early 1950s. Cores were used to make the hollow areas of castings.
Image credit: Alstom
Partially built locomotives outside Vulcan works around 1890.
Image credit: AlstomAs an important part of the British Empire, India's railways were largely built to benefit British imperial interests. Railway lines could quickly transport soldiers to trouble spots, move raw materials to ports for export, or carry goods made in British factories to Indian customers. British investors profited from owning shares in Indian railways and much of the equipment was built in British railway works.
In 1903 the British Engineering Standards Association (BESA) began issuing specifications for Indian railway locomotives. The BESA standards benefitted British locomotive builders, by making it harder for cheaper American and German locomotives to be sold to Indian railways. However, the BESA locomotives were robust designs, and standardisation made it easier for the railway companies to operate and maintain them.
Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
3157 was built to BESA standards by Vulcan in 1911, as part of a batch of eleven engines ordered by the Indian North Western Railway (NWR).The railways built in India under British colonialism may have been built to serve British interests, but to the surprise of the British authorities, Indian passengers became enthusiastic train travellers.
The fondness for travelling by the rail has become almost a national passion… it is producing a social change in the habits of general society far more deep and extensive than any which has been created by the political revolutions of the last twenty centuries.
The Indian News and Chronicle of Eastern Affaires (1855)
The annual number of passengers who used Indian railways increased from 26 million in 1875, to 175 million by 1900, to 520 million by 1920. Engines like 3157 helped to meet this incredible demand for travel. The SPS engines were simple and sturdy, not the biggest or fastest, but well-suited to the daily job of pulling passenger trains. They were similar to mainline locomotives in Britain of the late Victorian era, but built to run on broad-gauge track, wider than was used in Britain. This allowed the boiler and firebox to be larger so the engine could pull heavier trains. You can find out more about 3157's origins on our blog.
What's a 4-4-0?
Steam locomotives are classified by the arrangement of the wheels on the engine, a system known as Whyte notation.
3157 is a 4-4-0 locomotive, which means it has:
- 4 leading wheels (the small wheels at the front, that help to support the locomotive's weight)
- 4 driving wheels (the big wheels in the centre, powered by the engine, which drive the train along)
- 0 trailing wheels (some engines also have small wheels at the back to support their weight)
The wheels on the tender behind the engine, used to carry coal and water, aren't counted.
What's an SPS?
From 1903 the British Engineering Standards Agency began issuing standard specifications for locomotives built for Indian railways. This included the SP (Standard Passenger) and SG (Standard Goods) locomotives. The SPS was a Standard Passenger engine fitted with a Superheater, which made it more efficient. Other types of standard locomotive were introduced as technology developed, like the AP (Atlantic Passenger) and HG (Heavy Goods) types.
3157 at work
We know little for sure about the career of 3157 after it arrived in India, but we can make educated guesses about its working life. 3157 probably pulled passenger trains around the NWR, in an area then the north west of India, but now mostly present-day Pakistan.
The NWR was the longest railway in India, with a route mileage of over 5,600 miles by 1936. By this time, the NWR employed over 100,000 people, most of who were Indian or Anglo-Indian; however, the best jobs on Indian railways were often reserved for Europeans under the racial hierarchies of empire. From its headquarters at Lahore, the NWR ran north and west to the mountainous frontier with Afghanistan, south and across the Indus River to Karachi on the coast, and east to Delhi and links with other Indian railways.
Photo by William Henry Jackson, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-W7-400
Image source
3157's trains would have carried a huge variety of passengers—soldiers, pilgrims, merchants, government officials, and millions of ordinary people travelling for the reasons people always do. Yet their journeys would have been very different depending on who they were. Europeans and prosperous Indians mostly travelled in first- or second-class carriages, which were spacious, comfortable and clean.
The Railway Companies in India do much for the comfort of travellers... Every 1st and 2nd class compartment is provided with a lavatory, and the seats, which are unusually deep, are so arranged as to form couches at night. There are refreshment rooms at frequent intervals, and some of them are very well managed and supplied. The Station-masters are particularly civil and obliging.
A Handbook to India and Ceylon (1892)
Yet most travellers, the vast majority of whom were Indian, travelled by third or intermediate class. Their carriages were overcrowded, unsanitary and uncomfortable, with hard wooden seats and often no toilets or other facilities.
We have witnessed ourselves the disgraceful overcrowding which exists among the third class passengers, owing to insufficient accommodation being provided for them, and the rough manner in which [they] are often treated by the subordinate railway officials.
Civil & Military Gazette (20 February 1872)
After nearly 200 years of imperial rule, Britain withdrew from India in 1947. With Britain under pressure and in a hurry to leave, the former colony was partitioned into two countries: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Partition was rushed and chaotic, leaving millions of people on the wrong side of the new borders. Outbreaks of mass violence forced as many as 15 million people to leave their homes for dangerous journeys across the border.
SMG/Daily Herald Archive
Often, they travelled by train, yet even on the railways there was no safety. Overloaded refugee trains were attacked and thousands of passengers murdered by armed mobs. There is no record of what happened to 3157 during Partition. However, the same type of standard locomotive appears in many photographs of refugee trains and the NWR's routes took it through areas that saw some of the worst of Partition's violence.
After the traumatic events of Partition, the NWR became the Pakistan Western Railway, later simply Pakistan Railways. SPS type locomotives, like 3157, returned to their normal jobs, pulling passenger trains around the new nation of Pakistan. Many of these sturdy engines lasted decades in service before replacement by diesel and electric locomotives. SPS locomotives were still pulling passenger trains in the late 1990s.
Photo courtesy of Lawrence Marshall
The journey home
3157 retired in 1981, having travelled over 1.5 million miles since its last boiler change in 1931. At the time the North Western Museum of Science and Industry, the predecessor of the Science and Industry Museum, was seeking British-built locomotives that had worked around the world. With the help of the British Overseas Railways Historical Society and contacts in Pakistan's government, 3157 was presented to the museum as a gift from the President of Pakistan.
Science Museum Group © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
SPS 3157's journey to its new home in our museum was an epic in its own right. After being overhauled by the Pakistan Railways works at Lahore, 3157 followed the route of the old NWR 600 miles to Karachi, where it was loaded onto a ship. After 20 days at sea, having travelled over 7000 miles, 3157 arrived at Liverpool, from where it had been shipped to India in 1911.
After being unloaded and transported to Manchester by road, 3157 has been on display in the museum's Power Hall gallery since 1982, where it remains one of our largest and most thought-provoking exhibits. The fuller story of 3157's journey home is told on our blog.
3157 at the museum
In 2017, commemorating the 70th anniversary of Partition, the renowned artist Nikhil Chopra used 3157 as the backdrop for a performance piece entitled Blackening 3157. Members of his own family had experienced migration during Partition so this was a particularly personal project for him.
During Blackening 3157, which took place over 48 straight hours, the character started as a smartly uniformed train conductor and metamorphosed into a Muslim refugee, all to a specially commissioned soundtrack of industrial noise, political speeches and ambient sound recordings. You can read more on Nikhil Chopra’s art practice in this blog post.
Nikhil Chopra's Blackening 3157
3157 is a marvel of historic engineering that exemplifies the movement of goods and people. It is a tribute to the industry and craft skill of the Lancashire workers who built it, and of the generations of Indian and Pakistan railway workers whose efforts kept it running for decades. By helping countless thousands of passengers get where they needed to be, it had a real impact on the world and many lives.
Yet its story is tied up with colonialism, inequality, exploitation and tragedy. 3157's historical significance makes it an incredible museum object, but it also raises questions about how it should be displayed. Its interpretation, when the Power Hall reopens in 2025, will touch on the many aspects of this complex, but fascinating history.
As part of our commitment to inclusive storytelling, the Science Museum Group is currently undertaking research to better understand the colonial context of our collections. You can read more about it on the Science Museum Group blog.
Further reading
- Christian Wolmar, Railways and The Raj: How the Age of Steam Transformed India (2017)
- Laura Bear, Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self (2007)
- DSE Gudgin, Vulcan Foundry Locomotives 1832–1956 (1976)
- Daniel Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress (1988)
- Rodger P Bradley, Last British Steam for the Raj (2020)
- BBC News, 'Partition: Why was British India divided 75 years ago?' (2022) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-62467438 (accessed 10 June 2024)
- Ritika Prasad, 'Overcrowded trains serve as metaphor for India in Western eyes – but they are a relic of colonialism and capitalism.' (2023) https://theconversation.com/overcrowded-trains-serve-as-metaphor-for-india-in-western-eyes-but-they-are-a-relic-of-colonialism-and-capitalism-207169 (accessed 10 June 2024)
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