East Indian Railway: 1906 History of the EIR - Chapter XXI
Note: This is a sub-section of the East Indian Railway
The History of the East Indian Railway by George Huddleston. Published 1906 by Tracker, Spins and Co
CHAPTER XXI. PROPOSED CENTRAL STATION IN CALCUTTA.
IN a previous chapter reference has been made to a proposal, made in 1862, to bridge the Hooghly River, as near as possible to Calcutta, and to construct in the metropolis a central terminal station, so as to form a more perfect connection between the railway and the capital, and to afford the public a more convenient point for taking or leaving the rail. In those days there was no bridge of any kind across the river, and passengers and goods had to be boated or ferried over the Hooghly, to and from the railway station, an arrangement so inconvenient as to be more easily imagined than described; it was then indeed a pilgrimage to get to or from the East Indian Railway Station at Howrah.
Since then a floating road bridge has been constructed and it is as easy to approach Howrah Station from say, Chowringhi, as it is to drive from Oxford Circus to Waterloo. But it is not the passengers or goods from Chowringhi who need to be considered; they are in the minority, and it makes little difference to them whether the railway station is in Howrah or in Dalhousie Square or in Bow Bazaar. The mass of the people, the great native population of Calcutta, live on the North side of the city, and for these Howrah is just as conveniently situated, as it would be if the site was fixed in the centre of the business part of the town.
In 1899, however, the idea of constructing a central station in Calcutta, which for some years had remained dormant, was revived. Proposals were made by a Syndicate known as the "Calcutta Central Railway Syndicate," and their proposals were considered by a committee and ultimately by the Government of India.
Briefly stated the Syndicate offered to construct a bridge, with a central railway and a central station, at an estimated cost of 425 lakhs of rupees, accepting a guarantee of 2.5 per cent on the capital employed, the revenue to be derived from a toll on goods and passengers.
The Committee who investigated the proposal agreed that a central railway station was preferable to maintaining different termini on the margin of the town; they agreed that Bow Bazaar afforded the best site; they thought however that the expense should not be defrayed in the manner proposed by the Syndicate, by the levy of tolls, but that the construction should be undertaken by the railways concerned, and not by a separate Company. While they considered it desirable to construct a railway bridge over the Hooghly, and to connect the railways on the West and East banks, by a line running through the heart of the city, their approval was subject to the condition that the scheme was financially practicable.
On the question of the estimated cost and of the possible revenue there was much difference of opinion, and ultimately the Government of India informed the Syndicate that their offer, unsupported as it was by those most interested, namely, the public of Calcutta, could not be entertained.
In the meantime the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who had given the question his most careful consideration, made a counterproposal "to develop the use of Sealdah," the terminus of the Eastern Bengal State Railway on the Eastern border of the city, "as a passenger station for the traffic with Upper India and for lessening the concentration of traffic at Howrah by every practicable means."
His views were summarized in these terms:
(1) "A railway bridge below Naihati is not at present required; when one is required it should not be built below Cossipore. The construction of any bridge on piers in the stream, at or near Howrah, (whether road or railway bridge), would be an experiment so dangerous to the shipping interests of the port that it would not be justified, unless traffic could be served by no other reasonable alternative."
(2) The plans for railways from West and North-West of Calcutta should be prepared with this in view.
(3) The development of goods traffic, via the Jubilee Bridge, to and from the Kidderpore Docks, for both exports and imports, should be encouraged by all reasonable and practical means.
(4) The use of Sealdah as a passenger station from and to Upper India should be carefully developed and all concentration of traffic at Howrah, passenger or goods, lessened by every practical means.
(5) Another and more central railway station in the heart of Calcutta is not required, would add to the grave congestion of the area, and could not be made remunerative.
With a good deal of this the Board of the East Indian Railway concurred. They agreed that a railway bridge below Hooghly was not needed; stated that they had done and would always do all in their power to develop and encourage goods traffic via the Hooghly Bridge, by equalizing the rates on all traffic passing from any part of the East Indian Railway, to and from the Docks, with those to and from Howrah; though the distance from Hooghly to the Docks is about 12 miles greater than to Howrah, and though the capital expenditure on the Hooghly Bridge and its approaches and subsidiary stations had amounted to between 60 and 70 lakhs of rupees. They had, they said, in order to facilitate the passage of export traffic, pressed on the Government of India the necessity for allowing the East Indian Railway to construct a separate line of its own from the Hooghly Bridge to the Docks.
As to the use of Sealdah as a passenger station the Board remarked that in their view "the character of the passenger traffic that is now dealt with at Howrah cannot be properly understood, if it is supposed that it has reached its present development from any causes other than those arising from the necessities of the case, and the natural adaptation of the population of Calcutta and the suburban towns, under the conditions of their various occupations and habits of life, to the conveniences offered to them by the railway. It cannot be doubted that during the fifty years and upwards, during which the Howrah Station had formed the principal terminus of the East Indian Railway, the population has settled itself locally, with an intelligent appreciation of the best means of obtaining the services of the railway in the form most likely to be advantageous to it."
The Board, however, were in no way averse to the use of Sealdah as a supplementary station to Howrah, they had in fact made a proposal to this effect some years previously. They desired an experiment to be made by starting at least one East Indian Railway passenger train from Sealdah instead of from Howrah, but circumstances prevented the trial, and it is remarkable that there has never been any public expression, on the part of any section of the Calcutta population, of the need of a direct train service from Sealdah to stations on the East Indian Railway.
The Board quite concurred with the view of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal that a central station was not needed. Calcutta is an essentially terminal station for all the railways that centre there, and no such transfer of passenger or goods traffic from station to station takes place in Calcutta, with a view to subsequent transmission over other lines, as is often the case at other large centres of population at which railway junctions take place.
There is in fact no valid reason for "a common passenger station for all lines centering in Calcutta," and though a central station and a railway bridge connecting Howrah and Calcutta would undoubtedly be a convenience, the cost of providing it is far too great to bring it within practicable reach.
What is wanted is a suitable and commodious station at Howrah, and this at last is being constructed, though, unfortunately, the Government of India have only sanctioned part of what the East Indian Railway originally proposed, as necessary to meet the urgent requirements of themselves and of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Company.
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