So what if there’s no horizontal space to maneuver? What about going vertical! Yet this simple solution took a long time to appear in the collective wisdom of Eastern Railway’s engineers. But at last it has.
The place in question is Dum Dum Junction, and the plan in pipeline is to construct an elevated pair of tracks rising from just after Dum Dum Cantonment station, passing Dum Dum Junction station and sloping down to meet the main tracks near the place where the metro tunnel starts. [News source: ABP, Feb 5]
Which means the passengers of Bongaon ‘line’ will avail trains and disembark at elevated platforms at Dum Dum. This also means that trains on the main line and those to and from Dankuni will enter and leave Dum Dum without being held back by signals.
Why this grand plan? The objective is to ease pressure on Dum Dum Junction station, which incidentally is a unique railway junction where broad-gauge trains and Kolkata Metro operate, and from where one can virtually reach any corner of the city and its greater suburbs.
Dum Dum Junction is also the railway station that sees about 13 lakh ‘valid’ passengers passing through each day, and one through which commute 354 local trains, 52 express trains and 40 goods trains everyday. When a survey was done in October last, it was found that there was an increase of 1,78,245 passengers in just one month.
The plan is submitted to the Railway Board and hopefully will see an approval in the coming Railway Budget. Let’s hope it does, for then not only Dum Dum station can see a facelift, but also more number of trains will ply.
This is important because a new terminal, “Kolkata”, is rapidly coming into being beside the Chitpur railway yard, which will see more express trains originating there.
A view of platform no.1 [Picture source; © Bernard Lachaud / Taïga]
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