Alipurduar Junction | |
Type: | Regional Rail & Light Rail Station |
Style: | Indian Railways |
Address: | BF Road, Alipurduar, West Bengal |
Country: | India |
Elevation: | 53m (174feet) |
Line: | |
Other: | Auto-rickshaw & E-rickshaw |
Structure: | Standard on Ground |
Platform: | 5 |
Tracks: | 12 |
Parking: | Available |
Bicycle: | Available |
Electrified: | Yes |
Accessible: | Yes |
Owned: | Indian Railways |
Operator: | Northeast Frontier Railway |
Status: | Functioning |
Former: | |
Passengers: | 30,000 per day |
Map Type: | India West Bengal |
Mapframe: | Yes |
Alipurduar Junction is one of the four railway stations that serve Alipurduar city in Alipurduar district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Its station code is APDJ and it lies in New Jalpaiguri–Alipurduar–Samuktala Road line and Alipurduar–Bamanhat branch line. An adjacent railway junction is (station code NOQ).
The Cooch Behar State Railway built a narrow-gauge railway from Geetaldaha on the Eastern Bengal Railway to Jainti in 1901. The line passed through Alipurduar. It was converted to metre gauge in 1910.
With the partition of India in 1947, railway links of Assam and the Indian part of North Bengal, earlier passing through the eastern part of Bengal, were completely cut off from the rest of India. The Assam Rail Link project was taken up on 26 January 1948 to construct a 229adj=midNaNadj=mid metre-gauge railway linking Fakiragram with Kishanganj in Bihar via Alipurduar.[1] The first train ran on the route on 26 January 1950. The route was converted to broad gauge in 2003–2006.[2]
Now all the railway tracks in Alipurduar city are broad gauge.
Two adjacent local railway stations are Alipurduar (station code APD) and Alipurduar Court (station code APDC). Long-distance trains do not stop there.
Most of the long-distance trains from other parts of India pass through and stop at New Alipurduar railway junction (station code NOQ) constructed in the early 1950s as it is connected with double track to Assam and the rest of Bengal. The older Alipurduar station was on metre-gauge track that was converted to broad gauge much later in 2006 and fewer trains pass through Alipurduar station.
The two junctions are on different lines and only one short-distance train Alipurduar–Kamakhya InterCity Express (train number 15471) runs between the two junctions.
Northeast Frontier Railway converted the Alipurduar–Bamanhat branch line to broad gauge in 2007.