Howrah station
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Howrah Station is one of the two major train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the other is Sealdah Station, in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the west bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the nearby Howrah Bridge. It is the second-oldest station and one of the largest railway complexes in India.
Trains from this station serve the Kolkata urban area via the Kolkata suburban railway, the state of West Bengal, and most major cities of India. Its twenty-one platforms handle over three hundred trains each day, serving more than one a million passengers. It is served by two zones of the Indian Railways: Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway.
[edit] History
In 1854 the British colonial government in India started building a rail link from Kolkata to the coalfields in Bardhaman district. (This was the second railway line constructed in India after the first one from Bombay to Thaney in 1853). The line started from Howrah, then a small town at the west shore of the river Ganga opposite to Kolkata. At first it was a single line track and a station at Howrah was built for goods only. It was a small shed with a few warehouses beside it and a ticket counter. However traffic gradually increased and the station building was extended. Due to heavy increment of traffic a new station building was proposed in 1901. Designed by British engineer Halsey Ricardo, the station was brought into service on 1 December 1905. This building is the current Howrah station building. The station is served by the Estern Railway for trains to Burdwan and points North along the Ganges and by the South Eastern railway for points West to Mumbai and South to Chennai; South Eastern railway was previous known as the Bengal-Nagpur Railway (BNR, affectionaltely called "Be Never Regular" because of its notorious tardiness).
Four of India's most important trunk rail routes ends in Howrah. They are Howrah-Delhi, Howrah-Mumbai, Howrah-Chennai and Howrah-Guwahati.
Howrah station houses the divisional headquarters of the Howrah division of Eastern Railway zone of Indian railways.
The station complex includes the followings.
- Diesel Loco shed(50+ locos)
- Electric Shed(65+ locos)
- EMU car shed(15+ parking slots)
- Coach maintenance complex
[edit] External links
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