Thiruvananthapuram Railway Station,Kerala a fine colonial structure

Thiruvananthapuram Centraln.wikipedia.org

Thiruvananthapuram Centra Dreamstime.com

 Indian Railways (IR), which is being controlled and managed by the Central Government at New Delhi, has one of the busiest and largest railway networks in the world, besides, it operates both long distance and suburban rail systems. Because of its colonial connections under the Raj there  There are  countless railway stations in India whose buildings are strikingly colonial in nature. Many of them are architectural wonders.

Thiruvananthapuram Central  railway station, besides being the largest one in the  state of Kerala with respect to  passenger movement, it an an important hub on the Southern Railway built during the colonial days when Travancore was an important Princely State.  The impressive and strikingly beautiful  Thiruvananthapuram Central  station building was built in 1931. Being the capital city of Kerala, a highly literate state, this Central station  is connected to  almost major cities across India.

Thiruvananthapuram_Centralerail.in/blog/

The history of railways in Kerala has close links with the colonial period under the British crown. It was for the first time the Madras-Quilon line was extended to the capital of the Princely State of Travancore, Thiruvananthapuram and  it was opened on 4 January 1918. It meant this city had a direct rail link with Madras, then the  capital of the Madras Presidency.  The railway line then terminated at Chakka, then a trading centre of Thiruvananthapuram. The then Dewan of erstwhile state M.E. Watts, considering the hardship faced by the public,  took the initiative and had the railway line extended up to the center of the  busy city. The terminus was shifted to current location Thiruvananthapuram Central Thampanoor in 1931. 

As the necessity arose for a  spacious building with all amenities for the increasing number of passengers, etc, the Thiruvananthapuram Central station building was  constructed during the reign of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, the Maharani of Travancore (under the aegis of Sree Chithira Thirunal).The building was declared open  on 4 November 1931. An interesting feature of this building is it is entirely made of  dressed rock stones and lime mortar.  No bricks were used for the construction of this station Though  it was a branch line station with just solitary platform, it  was built to handle two departures per day in 1931 as per Maharani's wish. The platform with a single line continued till the 70's. It was presumably the longest covered platform at that time. The platform was so long that it could accommodate two trains at a time in that single line platform.

This station presently has 12 platforms out of which 10 will handle broad gauge trains and 2 platforms for meter gauge trains. To relieve passenger pressure 2nd and 3rd terminals were built in 2004 and 2007 respectively.  A few years ago the railway station could handle 200000 passengers daily. Nemom  and Kochuveli satellite terminals are functioning with trains originating from here. The station is the terminus for the proposed  High Speed Rail corridor connecting Chennai and Bangalore with Thiruvananthapuram. Mangalore-Thiruvananthapuram High Speed Rail (HSR) corridor was proposed in the recent railway budget. Work on these projects, it is said, is afoot. The Thiruvananthapuram railway station has two entrances. The main entrance is opposite to Central Bus Station Thiruvananthapuram and eastern entrance is on Power House road.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiruvananthapuram_Central_railway_station