‘Jamalpur Rail Workshop’ the oldest and biggest in Asia.

Jamalpur locomotive workshop was established on 8th February  1862. Jamalpur Locomotive  Workshop was the first full-fledged railway workshop facilities in India, set up by the East Indian Railway.

The place Jamalpur is 8 KM away from Munger(Bihar). There was a plentiful supply of skilled mechanics from Munger. Jamalpur locomotive workshop is famous for the manufacturing of iron wares, guns, pistols, spears, and other works.

When the selection was made it was probably thought that Jamalpur would be on the proposed mainline of EIR. The original headquarters of the locomotive department of EIR was located at Howrah had a great drawback because it was too confined for extensions as and when needed. At Howrah, the original workshop was supposed to handle the building of locomotives, carriage, and wagons.

In 1900 Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering( IRIMEE) at Jamalpur is the oldest of the Centralized Training Institutions (CTIs) of the Indian Railway. IIRIMEE started as a technical school attached to Jamalpur workshop, the largest railway repair workshop in India. After the first World War, the technical school was greatly expanded for the training of railway apprentices and supervisory staff involved with mechanical engineering. In the 1960s, a Diesel Traction Faculty was set up to conduct training courses and publish educational materials as IR engaged in desalinization.

In 1971 the name of the school was kept IRIMEE, and taken under the direct control of the Railway Board. In 1988 IRIMEE started conducting the various required courses probationary engineers and various Mechanical Engineering staff. Since 1997, IRIMEE has also been conducting various short-duration courses for other staff on various engineering topics. Topics include rolling stock and workshop technology, management science, and information technology aimed at officers and supervisory staff.

Here are a few achievements of the Jamalpur locomotive workshop. Jamalpur workshop is the only workshop in Indian Railways that has a captive Powerhouse of 5 MVA. The Jamalpur workshop to manufacture a steam locomotive and a locomotive boiler – 216 of which were manufactured between 1899 and 1923. It had 3 mills, a steam-driven Power hammer, a fish plate machine, billet shears, the mill was driven by steam from boilers placed on the top of the furnaces, and heated by gas from the furnaces. It produced about 400 tons of rounds, channels, angles, and fishplates per month. The First to establish a railway foundry in the year 1893. The First to manufacture a rail crane in the country with indigenous know-how in 1961.The First to manufacture high capacity electrical lifting jacks and ticket printing, ticket chopping, ticket slitting, and ticket counting machines. The First and the only railway workshop to manufacture electrical arc furnaces of ½ tonne capacity in 1961 for the production of steel castings. The First to established a Signal Equipment shop, more popularly known as “Points and Crossing and Interlocking shop” was started in 1894. produced the entire requirement of Interlocking frames of different sizes for EIR The First and only to manufacture 140 Tonne Diesel Break-down Cranes.