Kharagpur, West Bengal - Demographics - Kharagpur Junction As of Today

Kharagpur Junction As of Today

It is the busiest junction station in South Eastern Railway Zone after Howrah. Hence, it is often termed as Gateway to South Eastern Railway. Everyday approximately 275 trains pass through this station which includes frieght. So, in a bid to decongest Kharagpur station and speed up locomotives, South Eastern Railway has decided to develop Hijli (where IIT is located) as an alternative station for Kharagpur. In future, trains coming from Balasore side and going towards Adra or Tatanagar will stop at Hijli and bypass Kharagpur. The Howrah-Kharagpur section has been identified as one of the high density Automatic Block Section routes on Indian Railways. Thus plans are to deploy TPWS (Train Protection and Warning System) on this section to mitigate the risk of Signal Passing At Danger (SPAD) by train drivers leading to accidents. It has also been identified as one of Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) - on the East-West (Howrah-Mumbai), on the East-Coast (Kharagpur-Vijayawada). These routes would be operational well before 2020. This would create adequate capacity to meet the freight demand and also elevate the quality of service to global standards.

Kharagpur Railway Colony is the biggest railway settlement in India having about 13,000 quarters. Kharagpur is the largest integrated workshop on IR with facilities to service all types of rolling stock and locomotives. The workshop is spread over an area of 610,000 square meters, 260,000 of which are covered, the workshop handles POH for Diesel-Electric and Electric locomotives, EMU trailer and Motor coaches, freight wagons, coaches and even Diesel cranes. Besides this, it carries out rewinding of traction motors and traction generators and a lot of other related work. The massive workshop underwent massive modernization in 1979 and again in 1985 with a combined outlay of around 400 million rupees.

First wagon prototyping centre will be set up at Kharagpur which will develop new designs of wagons. The Indian Railways will set up IIT-Kharagpur's (IIT-KGP) largest research and development (R&D) centre. The investment may exceed ₨.120 crore. IIT-KGP is expected to carry out research on behalf of the Indian Railways on areas like equipment, manufacturing and technology upgradation for building a modern rail eco-system. The Railways is also looking at sponsored research and staff training in collaboration with IIT-Kharagpur. IIT-Kharagpur would be the first to partner for a dedicated R&D centre.