Kharagpur Junction came up in 1898-99. On one side, Bengal Nagpur Railway’s Kharagpur-Cuttack line was opened on New Year’s Day in 1899. On the other hand, the opening of the bridge over the Rupnarayan River at Kolaghat, on 19 April 1900, connected Howrah with Kharagpur. Kharagpur was also linked with Sini the same year. The line was ready in 1898-99. The Kharagpur-Midnapore branch line was opened to traffic in 1901.
Infrastructure
After Gorakhpur, and Kollam junction in Kerala, Kharagpur has the world's third longest railway platform with a length of. Remodelling of Gorakhpur railway station was completed and the new platform inaugurated on 6 October 2013. Till then Kharagpur boasted of the longest platform in the world for many years. Kharagpur also has the Asia's largest Railway Solid State Interlocking system. Platform nos. 1 and 3, and 2 and 4 of Kharagpur Junction are contiguous. The 24 coach Coromandel Express stops at the start of platform no. 3 and its tail extends some distance into platform no. 1. ALOO Khasa is one of the famous dish found at the Kharagpur railway platform.
Background
It is the busiest junction station in South Eastern Railway Zone after Howrah. Hence, it is termed as Gateway to South Eastern Railway. It is one of the fifty highest railway reservation in India. It is a junction which connects Howrah to Mumbai, Chennai, Adra/Purulia and New Delhi via Tatanagar as well. It also connects Bhubaneshwar to New Delhi. Everyday approximately 275 trains pass through this station which includes freight traffic. In terms of passenger traffic it handles 176 trains on a daily basis. So, in a bid to decongest Kharagpur station and speed up locomotives, South Eastern Railway has decided to develop Hijli as an alternative station for Kharagpur. In future, most of the new trains coming from Balasore side and going towards Adra or Tatanagar will stop at Hijli and bypass Kharagpur. In order to increase passenger commute between Kharagpur and Hijli, new EMU services have been introduced between these two stations. The Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line is classified under Route A of Indian Railways which allows trains to run at maximum permissible speed of 160 km/hr. However, as a result of the automated block section between Howrah and Kharagpur, the speed is restricted to 120 km/hr. The Howrah-Kharagpur section has been identified as one of the high densityAutomatic Block Section routes on Indian Railways. Thus plans are to deploy TPWS on this section to mitigate the risk of Signal passed at danger by train drivers leading to accidents.
