Railway Station

Rabindranath has said in one of his later poems that the railway icon show that this our world is the handiwork of a painter, not that of a blacksmith or artisan. A railway station is one of the features of modern civilisation. It is a place which helps railway passengers to get down from or board a train. Here passengers as well as goods and luggages are booked. Every railway station is provided with a time-chart for the arrival and departure of trains. It has its staff or officers including the station-master. The porters help passengers with their luggages.

 

Railway stations differ in size and importance; there are terminal stations like Howrah, Sealdah; junctions like Asansol and halt stations, like Bidhan Nagar. Some have a single platform which can receive only one train at a time. A junction has several platforms, with over-bridges.

The bigger stations have waiting rooms for all classes or passengers; restaurants, loudspeaker system to announce arrival of trains and platforms to touch. Usually the atmosphere is quiet and even sleepy when trains are off. But with the arrival of a train the station suddenly bursts into life. Passengers quit about, porters hurry forward, carrying loads of luggages; hawkers shout their wares in various tunes.

The ticket-checkers, the guard, move about in doing their functions. And then the train leaves, and the station once more is quiet. The railway station occupies an important place in the economy of the modern India. For a long-distance journey a railway train is perhaps the safest and certainly the cheapest of transport that is available to all. Trains run to carry food where their is shortage, to bring together people living in distant parts of the country closer to each other. Without these, life in a modern society is almost unthinkable.

A railway station exercises a strange fascination on all of us. Children gaze with wide-eyed wonder as a railway engine puffs its way into the station as did Apu and Durga in 'Pather Panchali'. Grown-up people, particularly in the country-side, gather on the platform to greet the incoming or see off out-going passengers.

I love to visit a railway station to have a sight of the multitude of men and women that crowd the platform; some alighting from the train; others get into it for a journey. What a busy scene it is; and what a rich variety is offered to our sight.

OR

A railway station is a halting place for the trains. At present, railway station are quite common in India. There are a number of railway stations by the sides of the railways.

But all the stations are not of equal size. Some are very small and some are very big. Some are of mediocre type. The big-sized stations are very small in number. They are situated generally at the railway junctions, the capital towns and the commercial centers.

The special features of a big railway station are a row of buildings for the railway office room, waiting rooms,, police station, mail-service, restaurants, book-stalls, the railway platforms with sheds overhead, the railway over bridges, the railways bells and the railway signal posts.

In the railway office buildings we see the stationmaster's office, the assistant stationmaster's office, the enquiry office, the office of the goods-clerk, the office of the booking clerk and the office of the time-keepers. In the booking office, there is a window through which the passengers purchase the tickets.

In the railway station there are two grades of waiting rooms for the passengers. The upper class waiting-room is meant  for the upper class ticket holders. The lower class waiting room is meant for the lower class ticket-holders.

The railway station holds a police-station inside it. The railway police personnel are there to check the crimes within a certain jurisdiction on the railways. The railway station provided the regular mail service which is known as R.M.S. The Railway restaurant provides meals and refreshments at the rates fixed by the Government. There are book-stalls in the railway station.

The railway platform is made of chips and mortar. It is raised quite close to the door-still of the railway bodies. Hence, the passengers find it easy to get in and get down the train. In the big station, we find more than one platform. In New York there stands the biggest railway station of the world. This station holds as many as forty-seven railway-platforms.

There are a fixed number of signal-posts at the two ends of the railway station. There is a small bar at the top-end of each signal post. When this bar keeps horizontal, a train does not come in or go out. This bar turns down to allow a train inside or outside the station. This is of course the day-time arrangement. At night, the signal-posts control the trains by their red yellow and blue lights fixed at their heights. The railway-bell rings to show that the lines are clear or the train is out or the train comes in. The railway station provides licensed coolies and hawkers for the convenience of the Railway passengers.

Outside the Railway Station, spots have been earmarked for parking of buses, taxis, rickshaw and bicycles. Near about we find the residential quarters of the employees. There are club-house, lawns, parks playground, dispensary and schools too, for the Railway men employed at the station.

It is pity the lower class waiting-room is always dirty. It is more due to the dirty habits of the lower class passengers than to the negligence of the Railway authority. So, the passengers should look to the neatness of the waiting rooms. When the trains come in with passengers, the station gets very noisy, people struggle against one another to get in and get down the compartments. Women, children, the old and the sick suffer a lot. Hence, we all should maintain proper discipline inside the station.

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