WAG-5 at its utterly best!! Overcrowded Lalgola Fast Passenger does sectional MPS through BNXR!!!
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Under the beautiful sunset, an ASN (Asansol) shed WAG- 5 hauling the 53177 Sealdah (SDAH)- Lalgola (LGL) Fast Passenger gallops through Bidhan Nagar Road (BNXR) station at the sectional MPS of 70 km/hr. Only high priority trains are seen to speed at more than the MPS here. Was...
more... excited to see the acceleration made by the Waggie. Afterall, the station is only 3 kms away from Sealdah.
Lalgola, a small town at 225 kms north of Kolkata is situated on the India-Bangladesh border. Though Lalgola does not have any railway connectivity with Bangladesh, but it is a terminal station which hauls more than a dozen of trains everyday. Only Gede and Bongaon (these two locations are also at border) have railway connectivity with Bangladesh, and the Kolkata Chitpur Terminal (KOAA)- Dhaka MAITREE International Express uses the Gede route to cross the border.
Due to extreme rush, almost a dozen of passengers, and a couple of Express trains travel between Lalgola (LGL)- Murshidabad (MBB)- Berhampore Court (BPC) and Kolkata everyday. Earlier the route was complete ruled by alcos, but after electrification was done in 2004 (now doublification is going on), half of the trains were given electric locos on a permanent basis, but the remaining half are still hauled by alcos.. While the electric ones are hauled by ASN WAG-5 , the alcos are hauled by WDM-2/ 3A of HWH/ BWN. And the MEMU was recently introduced a couple of months ago.
The main line of the Eastern Bengal Railway from Sealdah to Ranaghat, was opened in 1862 and extended to Kushtia, now in Bangladesh. The Calcutta terminus of the Railway was opened the same year in a tin-roofed shed at Sealdah.The Sealdah (SDAH)- Ranaghat (RHA)- Gede Line was part of the Calcutta- Siliguri (SGUJ) Main Line. After partition of India in 1947, the main line got truncated and what remained in West Bengal formed the Gede Branch Line. The Ranaghat- Lalgola Branch Line was opened in 1905.