The origins of the Bombay to Peshawar Punjab Mail are rather unclear. Based on a Cost Estimate paper circa 1911 and a complaint by an irate passenger circa October 12, 1912 about the 'late arrival of the train by a few minutes at Delhi', it has been more or less inferred that the Punjab Mail made her maiden run out of Ballard Pier Mole station on 1 June 1912.

Punjab Mail is over 16 years older than the more glamorous Frontier Mail. Ballard Pier Mole station was actually a hub for GIPR services. The Punjab Mail, or Punjab Limited as she was then called, finally steamed out on 1 June 1912. To begin with, there were the P & O steamers bringing in the mail, and the Officers of the Raj, along with their wives, on their first posting in Colonial India. The steamer voyage between Southampton and Bombay lasted thirteen days. As the British officials held combined tickets both for their voyage to Bombay, as well as their inland journey by train to their place of posting, they would, after disembarking, simply board one of the trains bound for either Madras, Calcutta or Delhi.