On 16th April 1853, at 3:35 pm, India's first train, with 14 carriages and 400 guests ran from Bombay's Bori Bunder to Thane after a 21-gun salute. The 21-mile-long historic journey that took about forty-five minutes to complete was hauled by three locomotives - Sultan, Sahib and Sindh.

Brereton was responsible for linking this with the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, resulting in a combined network of 6,400 km (4,000 mi). It had now become possible to travel directly from Bombay to Calcutta via Allahabad. Opening on 7th March 1870, it is said that this line partly inspired French writer Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days.

163 years later, the Indian Railways has become the biggest government entity of the country. Today, there are more than 11,000 trains transporting over 2.5 crore passengers daily. It is also the largest employer of the country, employing more than 1.4 million people (as per 2015). This also makes it the third largest employer in the world, right after the State Grid Corporation of China and the China National Petroleum Corporation.