White Gold. More precious than its yellow equivalent at the time, cotton or ‘white gold’ was coveted by the British perhaps more than any other single commodity in the mid-19th century. But there was just one thing that stood between the British East India Company and the mother lode – a short but treacherous stretch of the Sahyadri hills between Bombay and Poona called the Bhor Ghat. It was too steep for the railway to attempt.

If they could conquer their Everest – a section of the hills between Khopoli and Khandala – the British would gain unfettered access to the cotton-rich Deccan region in Maharashtra, places such as Solapur and Nagpur. Back then, the roads were dodgy, often washed away by the monsoon. A railway line would not only be more secure, but it would also make it possible to transport bulk shipments across the ghats (‘mountain range’ in local parlance).