Title - Effort to decongest Kharagpur station, Hijli to be developed as an alternative

In a bid to decongest the Kharagpur station and speed up locomotives, South Eastern Railway has decided that four Express trains will bypass Kharagpur and will stop at Hijli.Four long distance trains - 15629/15630 Chennai Egmore -Guwahati Weekly Express (via Tata), 15929/15930 Chennai Egmore-Dibrugarh Weekly Express (via Tata), 16309/16310 Ernakulam-Patna Bi-weekly Express and 15639/15640 Puri-Guwahati Weekly Express will run via Hijli-Nimpura Yard-Gokulpur/Kalaikunda bypassing Kharagpur with stoppage at Hijli.This will become effective on different nominated days during the period from August 4 to 24, SER today said.This adjustment in train operations will lead to improvement of punctuality of trains - particularly in the highly congested Kharagpur-Howrah suburban section.The mentioned four trains have been chosen as comparatively less number of passengers board or detrain from these locos at busy Kharagpur station.During the last few years it was observed that 12-14 trains get detained outside Kharagpur for 10-15 minutes before getting an accommodation in loco changing platforms.The layout of Kharagpur station is such that all trains coming from Balasore side and moving towards Tatanagar or towards Midnapur needs to be taken on platform No. 5 or 6 of Kharagpur station and then a reversal of loco is required. Similar is the case of trains coming from Midnapur or Tata and going towards Balasore and beyond. This exercise takes at least 20 minutes to perform.

There has been a considerable rise in the number trains ( 90 app.) through Kharagpur during the last three years and at present 278 trains pass through this station in a day. In view of this, the Railway authority started planning for decongestion of Kharagpur and development of a second station in the vicinity of Kharagpur .

Hijli has been chosen in this regard considering several factors like availability of public transport, proximity to IIT and consent of district administration.

Hijli also getting upgraded with development of infrastructure and new EMU service between Hijli and Kharagpur.