The Dring family had been resident in India since 1830, only leaving when military service demanded it, and remained connected to the country for several generations.

[2] In 1879, Dring joined the East Indian Railway Company as Assistant Secretary to the Agent, Sir Bradford Leslie, a pupil of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

[10] Dring was Lieutenant Colonel Commandant, East Indian Railway Volunteer Rifles, and Honorary Aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, India.

[citation needed] After his investiture in 1912, Dring left India for a six-month holiday in England and returned by mail steamer on 22 November.

About two kilometres from Gujhandi, a railway signalman spotted a white man standing between two carriages of the moving train, who appeared to be in difficulty.

Half a kilometre further away, a gang of railway workers bent forward in homage to the train and when they raised their bodies they saw what they thought was a pile of white rope on the track.

[1] How the accident occurred is a mystery, although a friend who had frequently travelled with Dring said that he had the habit of sipping his morning tea on the railing of the observation platform.

Perhaps a jolt of the train or some unexpected movement had thrown him off, but how a man of Dring's experience and competence could have fallen during his daily routine has not been explained.