Question

In India, the first steam engine travelled between ______ and _____ in 1853.
(A) Nagpur: Pune
(B) Chittaranjan: Jalpaiguri
(C) Mumbai: Pune
(D) Mumbai: Thane

Answer 1

Hint:
The first railway proposals in India were made in Madras in 1832. The first train from India departed from the Red Hills to the Chintadripet bridge in 1837. It was called the Red Hill Railway and used the railway line built by William Avery.

Complete step by step solution:
  Indian Railways is the largest government agency in the country. The first train left Mumbai for Thane in 1853, traveling a distance of 34 km. The first passenger train in the country, which ran between Bombay station Bori Bunder and Thane on 16 April 1853, was donated by Lord Dalhousie. The 14-car train was pulled by three steam locomotives: Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan. Traveling 34 miles [34 km], the train carried 400 people. The passenger line was built and operated by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. It is made of a 1,676 mm wide gauge (5 ft 6 in), which became the national standard for railways. In May 1854, the Bombay - Thane line was extended to Kalalyan and Thane viaducts over the Thane River (India's first railway bridges). The first passenger train in eastern India left Howrah (near Calcutta) for Hooghly, 39 miles [39 km] away, on August 15, 1854. This line was built and operated by the East Indian Railway Company.
Hence, the correct answer is option D.

Note:
The first Indian railway proposals were made in Madras in 1832. [1] The Red Hill Railway, the country's first train, departed from the Red Hills to the Chintadripet Bridge in Madras in 1837. It was towed by a locomotive engine built by William Avery. Built by Arthur Cotton, the railway was used primarily to transport the future stone of road construction work in Madras.