There are several addresses in the city which have a fascinating story to tell be it Poornanadampet, Arundelpet, Suryraopet, Hanumanpet, Benz Circle, Andhra Patrika Centre and so on.
One among them is Nizam Gate -- the busy railway level crossing intersecting Kamsalipet and Wynchipet, which has an illustrious historical past.
The railway gate, which has been in service of the local people for decades now, acquired the Nizam tag from the Nizam Guaranteed State Railways (NGSR), an independent railway owned by the Nizam of Hyderabad, which operated in the region from 1889 until it was brought under Indian Railways in 1950.
Though the Nizam did not rule Vijayawada (his domain was till Errupalem in Khammam district), the city (then Bezwada) had the distinction of serving two railways -- the Nizam Guaranteed State Railways Company (NGSR) and the Madras and Southern Mahratta (MSM) Railway of the British India as a transit terminal.
Highlighting the city’s connect with the Nizam, Swamy Charan, former secretary of South Central Railway Mazdoor Union says, “A goods shed used to be near the Nizam Gate to take care of loading and unloading of freight. The huge gate of the goods shed was called the Nizam Gate. After dismantling of the goods shed the level-crossing continued to be known by the same name and continues even today.”
The Nizams laid a broad gauge railway track in 1889 to Bezwada to improve their trade with the town which was not under their domain. Bezwada was already a flourishing commercial town and it was part of the British India.
“The NGSR trains, both passenger and freight, used to come up to Bezwada and near the level-crossing there used to be a foreign exchange counter. To travel on either side, travellers used to get the appropriate currencies at this counter,” reminiscences octogenarian Somaraju, a retired train lighting supervisor, who saw the functioning of the Nizam Railways from close quarters.
The present cycle stand below the foot-over bridge opposite the Divisional Railway Manager’s office was the place where the drivers, firemen, coalmen and the guards of the Nizam’s Railways used to rest.
Many railway old-timers distinctly remembered the old systems of measurements used in the good shed and the wooden compartments with the NGSR logo highlighting a half moon and a star.
“Those days it was easy to identify people from the Nizam area by their clothes and the way they spoke. They had the Urdu flavour in their Telugu,” recollects another octogenarian Mohammad Hussain, who retired from the railways.
Shukoor, a Wynchipet resident, who was privy to information about Nizam railways, recalls how then there was a great demand for rice, jaggery, sugarcane, edible oils, mangoes and sugarcane which came from the Nizam-dominated areas. People from coastal areas used to buy produce such as ragi ( finger millet ), jowar ( sorghum ) and castor oil ( amudam ) from the Nizam areas.
Though the Nizam and his rule no longer exists, Nizam Gate continues to remind people of the ‘regal’ connect Vijayawada had with a bygone era.
