Anantapur district, Guntakal railway junction, SCR histroy: click here
Anantapur is among the earliest districts in the State to be linked to railways. Within the district,
the Madras-Bombay broad gauge (5 feet 6 inches) line is the first to be laid. This line was completed in stages and the section from Muddanuru (Cuddapah district) to Tadpatri could only be opened for traffic on the 1st September 1868 owing mainly to the delay in the construction of bridges over the Chitravati and the Penneru. On 1st August 1869, the line was extended to Gooty...
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and further to Guntakal and beyond on 12th December 1870. A branch line was also constructed from Guntakal to Bellary and was opened up to Virapur on 16th January 1871. The main line from Madras to Bombay, forming part of the Madras : Raichur section of the Southern Railway,runs in this district for a distance of about 61 miles
traversing the taluks of Tadpatri and Gooty from Vanganuru (Tadpatri taluk) in the north-east to
Guntakal (Gooty) in the north-west. A branch line*
* This line from Guntakal to Bellary. as originally constructed and worked by the Madras Railway Company along with the mam line from Madras to Bombay, was on the broad gauge. But with the construction of the Bellary-Kistna State Railway from Guntakal Jn to the river Krishna via Nandyal and the Nandikanama pass on the metre gauge, the Guntakal- Bellary branch line was transferred to the Southern
Mahantta Railway Company on 1st February 1887 and it was converted to the Metre gauge (3 May, 1887, connecting It to the line at Bellary.
In 1890-91, the district was also connected With the delta districts of Krishna and Godavari by
the metre gauge line from Guntakal to Tadepalli (Guntur district) on the Krishna river. This line was
also intended to connect the interior Rayalaseema districts with the Singareni coal fields and the canal systems of the Presidency. It traverses the north-western corner of Anantapur district for about four miles before entering Kurnool. The Guntakal-Nandyal section of the line was opened for traffic on 11th July, 1887. About the year 1883, the construction of two metre gauge imperial lines from Guntakal junction to Hindupur, eventually connecting it to Bangalore, and from Dharmavaram junction on the Guntakal-Hindupur line to Pakala was also taken up.The survey of the former was completed in 1884 and about one-third of the earthwork was executed as a relief work during the exceptionally dry season of 1884-85. The working project on the latter was com- pleted by about 1886-87 but actual construction could only be started during 1889-90. The completion of these two lines was further delayed owing to scarcity of labour and the prevalence of ‘severe fever’ in some sections. The sections from Guntakal to Dharma-
varam and Dharmavaram to Pakala were opened for traffic on 1st March 1892 and that from Dharmavaram to the Mysore border on 23rd April 1893. The Guntakal-Bangalore line passes through the centre of the district from Guntakal in the north to Gollapuram (Hindupur taluk) in the south, covering a
distance of about 121 miles in the taluks of Gooty,Uravakonda, Anantapur, Penukonda and Hindupur.
At the Dharmavaram junction, this line is linked to the Pakala branch railway which runs for a distance
of about 64 miles from Dharmavaram in the centre of the district to Cheekatimanipalle (Kadiri taluk) In its
south-eastern corner.
The Bellary-Rayadrug branch line was one of the
six cheap famine protective railways projected during
the year 1899-1900. This metre gauge line constructed
from out of the Famine Insurance Fund, was thrown
open to traffic on 1st July 1905. Entering the district
at Qbuiapuram in the north-western comer of the
Eayadrug taluk, it traverses the taluk for a distance
of about 25 miles and terminates at the Rayadrug
town. The several streams crossing the line have
not been bridged and traffic, therefore, gets interrup-
ted whenever they receive full supplies. Train ser-
vices have, however, been improved considerably with
the construction of a railway bridge across the Chinna
Hagari in 1962.
Thus, there are about 61 miles of broad gauge and
218 miles of metre gauge railway in this district. This
works out to about 3.77 miles of railway for every 100
square miles of its area, comparatively better than the
corresponding average for the State as a whole (2.66
miles). All the taluks except Kalyandrug and Mada-
kasira are directly linked to the railway. There are in
all 40 railway stations* within the district. Three of
the eleven taluk headquarters, namely, Kalyandrug,
Madakasira and Uravakonda, and four of the fourteen
towns, namely, Uravakonda, Kalyandrug, Madakasira
and Yadiki, are not connected by rail. With the intro-
duction of railways, the district became readily acces-
sible to relief during famines and seasonal scarcities.
Railways have also opened up the interior parts of the
district and facilitated the marketing of its chief com-
mercial products. Places like Guntakal and Kalluru,
which were not of much importance before, have now
shot into industrial and commercial prominence. But
the advent of railways has not been an unmixed bless-
ing as the district now presents a pattern of lopsided
development with the progress concentrated mostly
along the railway lines.