[2][3][4] In 1885, a narrow gauge train services Jorehaut Provincial Railway had come into operation and ultimately became instrumental in the rapid growth of the tea industry.
Meanwhile, the stretch between Gohaingaon and Jorhat was renamed and Chief Commissioner of Assam Sir C. A. Elliott formally opened the now Kokilamukh State Railway on 9 December 1984.
The construction of a 7-mile (11 km) branch line from Cinnamara to Mariani was carried out in December 1884, and opened for freight traffic on 7 January 1885.
[5] Technically this line was not a very difficult one to construct, being unballasted, with the sharpest curve of 480-foot (150 m) radius and a ruling gradient of 1 in 800, except the Jorhat-Cinnamara stretch, where it was 1 in 400.
At the initial stage, Kokilamukh Railway found it cheaper to buy second-hand engines running on a similar gauge, the DHR being a storehouse of the worn out ones.
The 2 ft (610 mm) gauge wallahs of India were a closely knit fraternity, not averse to swapping rolling stocks with each other.