Howrah Station - History

History

Initial plans for the first Howrah station were submitted by George Turnbull the Chief Engineer of the East Indian Railway Company on 17 June 1851. In January 1852, it became clear that the government authorities would not sanction the purchase of sufficient land nor the necessary waterfrontage despite remonstrations from Turnbull that the terminus would grow enormously. In May 1852, the detailed station plans were the major work of him and his team of engineers. In October four tenders for building the station were received varying from 190,000 to 274,526 INR against an estimate of 250,000 INR.

Due to a great increase of traffic, a new station building was proposed in 1901. The new station was designed by the British architect Halsey Ricardo. It was brought into service on 1 December 1905. This building is the current Howrah station building. The station had 15 platform tracks.

It was expanded in the 1980s with the addition of 8 platform tracks in an area to the south of the station which previously had a parcels terminal, bringing the track count up to 23. At the same time a new Yatri Niwas (transit passenger facility) was built south of the original head house.