Mumbai has lost a quiet custodian of its railway heritage. Subhash C. Dixit, the man who breathed life back into the city’s steam locomotives one final time, has passed away.

In 2002, as Indian Railways marked 150 years since the country’s first railway journey, two WP-class steam giants — No. 7161 and No. 7015 — thundered across Mumbai hauling a heritage train that recreated that historic run. Rooftops, platforms and bridges filled with people craning for a glimpse of the iron horses in full flight. It remains the last time the city witnessed operational steam locomotives in their true glory. I was one of them.

Behind that spectacle stood Dixit, then serving at the Parel Locomotive Workshop. It was his technical expertise, patience and sheer devotion that brought those engines roaring back to life for the tribute — a gift, in hindsight, to an entire generation that got to see living steam move through Mumbai one last time.

Dixit’s own journey with the railways began in 1962, when he joined as an Apprentice Mechanic at the Central Railway Workshop in Parel — the same workshop that once belonged to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. Over 43 years of service, he rose to Assistant Works Manager, earning the General Manager’s Award twice among numerous other honours, before retiring in August 2005.

Even in retirement, his connection to Parel and to railway heritage never faded. He remained one of the workshop’s most respected old-timers, a living link to an era of Indian Railways that few can now recall firsthand. It was an honour to have him re-unveil the Marathi translation of my first book, Halt Station India, at 79 — a quiet, fitting tribute to a man who spent a lifetime keeping history running on time.

With his passing, the railway fraternity hasn’t just lost an engineer. It has lost a custodian of steam heritage — someone who understood that these machines weren’t just metal and fire, but memory made mobile.

Rest in peace, Shri Subhash C. Dixit. The whistle you last sounded across Mumbai in 2002 still echoes.