FHACT Monthly Meeting (Register)

Due to the extended COVID lockdown in the ACT the FHACT Monthly Meeting is now a Zoom only meeting and is open to members of the public as well as FHACT members. Anyone interested in attending should register for this event via Zoom After registering to attend via Zoom you will receive an email with a link to the external Zoom website to complete the registration.

The topic for this meeting is:

"A Grandmother's Legacy: Full Steam Ahead"

Jenny Mallin from the UK will be sharing her Grandmother's experiences in India during the British Raj. With ancestors who were in India at the very beginning of the steam trains starting up in the Indian subcontinent, as well as those whose professions on the railway were held in high esteem by the railway companies themselves, we will  learn how life was for her grandfather who grew up on a railway colony, the first of its kind in India which proved to be an exemplar and one in which set a precedent for future ones to be established.  Kipling remarked how that particular railway colony was  "a paragon of European enterprise in the heart of India, laid out with military precision; each house with its share of garden, its red-brick path, its growth of trees and its neat little wicket gate."  With a highly visual presentation of steam trains, we will learn how obstacles were overcome with civil engineering achievements to provide a suitable way for trains to travel along a series of mountains with 1:37 gradients all with the aim of trading commodities for the East India Company.  This talk details the opening up of a country which up until the railway was only possible by bullock cart due to the varied landscape, climate and conditions of the roads.  The talk will end with a light hearted look at the difficulties faced by the author thirty years ago when trying to buy a train ticket in India.