Abandoned railway alignments - Part 4 - West Bengal
Siliguri has one of the most complicated railway histories with a lot of changes in track alignments, and multiple gauges operating at the same time.
In the attached map, the yellow/white and orange/white lines indicate abandoned routes, while the blue indicates routes converted from one gauge to another. The history goes as follows:
1) The...
more... first line in the region was the Siliguri - Haldibari meter gauge line, that opened on June 10th, 1878. Note that the original station was at the same location as the present day Siliguri Town station. New Jalpaiguri and Siliguri junction stations came up only after independence.
2) By 1881, the Darjeeling Himalayan railway was completed from Siliguri Town to Darjeeling. This route followed the Hill cart road right from Siliguri station.
3) In 1915, a 2 feet Narrow gauge line was opened from Kishanganj to Panchanai. This is the same line as the present day route between Kishanganj and Siliguri. This line was managed by the Darjeeling Himalayan railway company, and was on the narrow gauge. Note that, again there was no Siliguri junction station at this time. The trains coming from Kishanganj went to Panchanai and reversed to go to Siliguri town station. (Line marked in Yellow).
4) In the same year, the DHR opened another narrow gauge line from Siliguri Town to Sevoke and Kalimpong (Sikkim) called the Teesta Valley railway. This line ran along the present day Sevoke road. (Orange line).
For people familiar with the city, there used to be a station called 'Siliguri Road' at the Venus More junction, from where the Sevoke line and Darjeeling line separated.
5) In 1948, the Kishanganj-Panchanai route was converted as a part of the Assam rail link. The section between Matigara-Panchanai was abandoned. By January 26th, 1950, a new station called Siliguri Junction was opened, and a new meter gauge section was constructed between Matigara and Siliguri junction.
6) On January 26th, 1950, the meter gauge line from Siliguri junction to Alipurduar junction via Sevoke was opened. At this time, the narrow gauge line to Sevoke was realigned, and ran as a third rail on the meter gauge line till Sevoke. In June 1950, there were heavy floods in the Teesta river, and the Teesta valley line between Sevoke and Kalimpong was washed away. As a result, the narrow gauge line between SGUJ-Sevoke was abandoned.
