The Train

Description

Bangladesh’s first railway station has been running for about 160 years. On November 15, 1862, the first train ran on the territory of present-day Bangladesh, stopping at Jagati Railway Station in Kushtia. It is 3 km from the city of Kushtia. The British built this railway station in the city of Kushtia.

The station building was constructed of red brick. Now, however, this heritage-oriented station building is a kind of abandoned. No one has been in the building for years. The waiting room, which was built for the convenience of passengers a long time ago, has also been demolished. The platform’s brick was also broken and the structure was also damaged. Two large overhead water tanks, which were built on both sides of the platform to supply water to the steam engine, were also abandoned a long time ago. At that time, the water in these two tanks was drawn from underground by a pump running on a coal engine.
On 16 April 1853, the first passenger steam locomotive built by the Peninsular Railway started its journey in the Indian subcontinent. The 34 km journey from Boribunder in Mumbai to Thane was covered with 400 passengers. In 1854, the first railway line in Bengal was opened from Howrah to Hooghly, a distance of 38 km. The Eastern Bengal Railway opened a broad gauge (5 ft 6 in) railway line from Sealdah to Ranaghat in Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal, on 29 September 1862.

The railway line from Sealdah to Ranaghat, which was opened in the same year, was extended to Jagati in the present Kushtia district (former Nadia) to a length of 53.11 km. Then on 15 November 1862, trains started running from Sealdah in Kolkata to Jagati in Kushtia. The direct train crossed the Gede-Darshana border of West Bengal and came to Jagati, 3 km away from the present Kushtia district town.