Skip to main content

Legacy of a 91 year old Iron Bridge of Singtam

By himalayanreview
My first fantasy over Sikkim history started with this nameplate ‘1929 Burn & Co. Ltd, Bridge Builders, Howah’ found hanging atop of the front and the backside of the old iron bridge at Singtam joining the District Hospital Singtam with the bazaar. I believe this is the oldest iron bridge still functional though these days limited to foot walk. 


For 91 years it has been an identification of Singtam and this heritage bridge is getting its major facelift these days, a crown added to its legacy. This bridge connected Siliguri, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and other regions to Gangtok via Rangpo - Singtam motorable road. Well, I might be lucky enough to say that I had even seen bullock carts passed by this bridge till the late 80s. 

Tracing back the establishment of Burn & Co. Ltd, I found that according to an old record found in 1809, a company ‘Burn & Currie’ had Alexander Burn as the Head of the company along with another gentleman Mr. Currie. Currie left the company in 1831, the existing company was then known as Alexander Burn & Co. By 1891 it was renamed Burn & Co. Ltd. At the start of the 1900s, it had its office at Howrah and other different parts of Indian and abroad.

By 1930 they had several departments - Rolling Stock, Bridge Building, Permanent Way, Shipbuilding, Foundry, and General Engineering. ‘Burn & Co’ produced both passenger carriages and wagons for many Indian mainline railways. In 1946 ‘Burn & Co Ltd’ merged with ‘Martin & Company’ to form ‘Martin, Burn & Company’. Further, In 1975 they merged with the ‘Indian Standard Wagon Co Ltd’ to become the ‘Burn Standard Company Limited’ and developed excellence in manufacturing Railway wagons, forged components, springs, etc.

I am sure in the next nine years we will celebrate its 100th birth anniversary.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JANHA BAGCHA TEESTA RANGIT

By himalayanreview
This was a national song of Sikkim sung in the Nepali language during the monarchy system. During the merger with India, the song got banned and later re-released. Two words on the 8th para, which earlier said 'Rajah rah Rani,' were replaced with "Janmah bhumi."     This song was dedicated to the King and Queen of Sikkim. The song lyrics were penned by Sanu Lama, and the music was composed by Dushyant Lama.  The song was first sung on the birth anniversary of Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal on April 4, 1970, at Gangtok by Aruna Lama, Dawa Lama, and Manikamal Chettri.    JANHA BAGCHA TEESTA RANGIT,  JAHAN KANCHENDZONGA SEER   YEHI HO HAMRO DHANA KO DESH,  TAPAWAN HO PYARO SIKKIM     INTERLUDE     PHULCHAN YEHA AANGANAI MAA,  CHAAP , GURAS, SUNAKHARI   SWARGASARI SUNDAR DESH KO  HAMRO PYARO PYARO JANMAHBHUMI     JANHA BAGCHA……     BATASHLE BOKCHAA YAHA,  TATHAGAT KO AAMAR WAANI ...
16 comments
Read more

India’s illegal occupation of independent Sikkim has to be reversed

By himalayanreview
Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...
19 comments
Read more

The Gorkhas - Sons of the Soil, Pride of the Nation

By himalayanreview
 Nanda Kirati Dewan, a journalist from Assam traces the origin of the Gorkhas in India. Many people have misconceptions about the Gorkhas in India - that they are foreigners and have migrated from Nepal. There could not be a greater mistake than this. The Gorkhas are in fact the aborigines of India and they can trace their history back to ancient times. The Gorkha community is the product of Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid assimilation from ages past. As a linguistic group, they can trace their origin back to Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman beginnings. In fact, the Gorkhas consist of both Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid racial groups. In the Mahabharata and Manusmriti names of Khasa are mentioned. They are in fact the Gorkhas. The Gorkhas spoke the language then known as Khaskura Khasas as a community existed in Nepal which it later changed to another ethnic name. The Lichchhavis, one of the aboriginal tribes of India originally lived in the plains of present Nepal. During the early centu...
9 comments
Read more