Google doodles 160 years of India's first passenger train journey

New Delhi: On April 16, 1853, that is exactly 160 years ago, India's first passenger train chugged out of Bori Bunder, in Bombay (now Mumbai), for its destination 34 kilometres away, Thane.

Google is commemorating that momentous event with a celebratory doodle on its India home page. The India's first passenger train journey shows a steam locomotive pulling a passenger train on a palm-lined railway track.

In the first railway passenger journey in India three steam locomotives, Sultan, Sindh and Sahib, took 400 invited passengers in 14 carriages on a 57 minute journey that had one halt.

On 16 April 1853, India's first passenger train chugged out of Bori Bunder for Thane.

While the Bombay-Thane line is generally seen as the birth of what is now one of the world's largest railway systems, the first railway line in India was laid a good 21 years earlier in 1832 near Chintadripet Bridge, now in Chennai.

Indian Railways has also issued ads marking the event.