1934-FIRST AIR CONDITIONED TRAIN[ Frontier Mail ] IN INDIA USED ICE BLOCKS TO COOL THE TRAIN

The airconditioning system in those days used ice blocks, carried in sealed receptacles built beneath the car floor. These were replenished at several halts along the line. A battery operated blower constantly blew air into these receptacles, and the cold air entered the insulated cars through vents. Very basic, very messy, but the effect was very pleasant indeed. Today, the thought of huge ice blocks being pushed into the underfloor ice receptacles at every other stop is daunting enough!

During the winter months of September through December, the Frontier Mail used to depart from Ballard Pier Mole station. British journalists at that time used to refer to this train as the 'duplicate portion' of the Frontier Mail. Ballard Pier Mole station was an ideal hop on point for the several British ladies and gentlemen arriving from England by steamer. It was also a pick up point for mail brought in from Europe by the P & O mail steamer. It is interesting to note that when the train left Ballard Pier Mole station, it traversed over the tracks of the Bombay Port Trust Railway, Great Indian Peninsula Railway, and only then eventually crossed onto the metals of the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway.
The competition between the BB & CI and GIP Railways is almost legendary. As long ago as 1855, when the GIP Railway was struggling to obtain approval from England for construction of a line across the Western Ghats, the rival BB& CI Railway jumped in with its proposal that an alternative route via Baroda would be more practicable, it would avoid the arduous ghats, and this new line could connect with the East Indian Railway, something which the GIP Railway had been hoping to achieve once it got permission to cross the ghats anyway. Beginning with that, the competiton carried on till both the Railways had their own trains running from Bombay to Peshawar: the GIP's Punjab Limited, and now the BB & CI's Frontier Mail.
FIRST AIR CONDITIONED COMPARTMENT [INDIANS WERE ALLOWED INSIDE?! OR WAS IT ONLY FOR THE WHITE MEN?}

Workmen top off a reefer's top-mounted bunkers with crushed ice.