The railway expansion under British rule reshaped much of India’s landscape, and Vidarbha was no exception. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several planned railway settlements emerged across this region, each built to serve the logistical and administrative demands of the colonial railway network.

These were not just stations but entire living environments, equipped with housing, workshops, stores and roads designed for railway employees and their families.

Their structured layouts, European-style architecture and socio-economic influence left a distinct mark on the development of the towns they occupied. Over time, many of these settlements evolved into self-sustaining neighbourhoods that still retain traces of their colonial origins in building patterns and railway infrastructure.

1. Ajni Railway Colony, Nagpur District

Ajni developed in the late nineteenth century as a major operational base for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. Located south of Nagpur city, the area was specifically planned to accommodate maintenance yards, goods sheds and locomotive facilities that supported the growing traffic between Bhusawal and Nagpur. Around these functional units, residential quarters were constructed for engineers, drivers, fitters and their families. The colony was laid out with wide internal roads, officers’ bungalows and standardised quarters arranged according to rank, reflecting the hierarchy that governed railway employment under British administration. Distinctive structures such as red-brick sheds, turntables and water tanks defined the industrial character of the settlement.

Over time, Ajni became an essential technical hub that connected multiple freight lines and served as a training and housing zone for hundreds of railway workers. Even today, the colony’s layout and some of its early twentieth-century quarters remain visible reminders of the British approach to railway town planning in central India.

2. Gondia Railway Colony, Gondia District

The town of Gondia owes much of its growth to the Bengal Nagpur Railway, which established a strategic junction there in the late 1800s. Before the railway’s arrival, Gondia was a modest market settlement surrounded by forested terrain and paddy fields. With the construction of the main line linking Nagpur to Jabalpur and its branch lines towards Raipur and Nainpur, Gondia became a key operations and logistics centre. A full-fledged railway colony was developed adjacent to the station, comprising staff quarters, rest houses, bungalows and recreational spaces.

The settlement layout reflected the British preference for zoned planning, where residential areas were separated from goods yards by tree-lined avenues and open spaces. Railway workshops and store depots created employment opportunities and spurred supporting services such as markets, schools and hospitals for employees. Gondia’s colonial railway colony shaped the town’s spatial and social evolution, transforming it from a rural junction into one of eastern Maharashtra’s enduring administrative and transport hubs. Many of the residential structures and street alignments from that period continue to define the area’s character.

3. Murtajapur Railway Colony, Amravati District

Murtajapur emerged as a distinctive railway settlement through the establishment of the narrow-gauge Shakuntala Railway, built in 1903 by a British-era company to transport cotton from Vidarbha’s interior to the broader railway network. The line linked Yavatmal and Achalpur through Murtajapur, creating a chain of small staff settlements, godowns and service yards that catered to the region’s cotton economy. The railway colony at Murtajapur was designed with compact residential quarters near the station, alongside offices, signal cabins and small repair sheds. Unlike the larger junctions of Nagpur or Gondia, this settlement served a specialised function, focusing on cotton loading and dispatch operations. The buildings used locally available materials but followed British engineering design standards, ensuring durability and uniformity.

The settlement’s establishment attracted a stable workforce that contributed to the formation of a township around it, influencing the district’s trade and connectivity patterns. Though the narrow-gauge line has largely lost its economic relevance today, remnants of the Murtajapur colony still illustrate the practical and functional nature of British-era railway settlements in the rural parts of Vidarbha.

The colonial railway colonies of Ajni, Gondia and Murtajapur highlight the different scales and functions through which British infrastructure shaped Vidarbha’s urban and rural spaces. These settlements reflected deliberate planning models introduced by the colonial railway administration to organise labour, housing and logistics within controlled environments. Their impact extended beyond transportation by generating employment, altering land use and introducing grid-based layouts to towns that previously grew organically.

Decades after independence, their built forms and spatial logic continue to influence urban morphology across the region. The story of these railway colonies underscores how transportation infrastructure once designed for imperial efficiency eventually became a framework for regional development in central India.