India passenger news

[west point]

New station having AC problems. Where exactly is this station?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...&cvid=a84fb8b1b4414b758d9cffcff104571d&ei=125

 

[jis]

New station having AC problems. Where exactly is this station?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...&cvid=a84fb8b1b4414b758d9cffcff104571d&ei=125

The title of the article says it is in Bengaluru, so it must be at that city. Are you looking for its address?

 

[caravanman]

Bengaluru is the "new" name for Bangalore. India is replacing many of the old colonial names.

Can be a little awkward to locate the correct train stations under their new names!

Bengaluru is one of the big IT places in India for call centres, etc.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

Bengaluru is the "new" name for Bangalore. India is replacing many of the old colonial names.

Old Name New Name
Bangalore Bengaluru
Bombay Mumbai
Madras Chennai
Calcutta Kolkata

Those are the ones I can think of, I'm sure there are others.

Stations also get renamed e.g. Bombay Victoria Terminus -> Mumbai CSMT (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus)

 

[jis]

Redacted

Old Name New Name
Bangalore Bengaluru
Bombay Mumbai
Madras Chennai
Calcutta Kolkata

Those are the ones I can think of, I'm sure there are others.

Stations also get renamed e.g. Bombay Victoria Terminus -> Mumbai CSMT (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus)

Yup. Bangalore to Bengaluru is relatively benign. Similar is Mangalore to Mengaluru.

There are more drastic changes too, specially of station names:

• Trivandrum to Thiruvantipuram in Kerala on the Malabar Coast by Arabian Sea
• Waltair to Vishakhapatnam often shortened to Vizag (huge Indian Navy Base on the Bay of Bengal) It is a terminal station on the Chennai - Kolkata route. All trains reverse direction here.
• Allahabad to Prayagraj on the Delhi - Kolkata route
• Mughal Sarai to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay (on the Delhi - Kolkata route, the largest Marshaling Yard in India and fourth largest in the world) often referred to as DDU (the station code)
• Gomoh to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Gomoh on the Delhi - Kolkata Grand Chord Route
• Gulbarga to Kalaburagi in Karnataka on the Mumbai - Chennai route
• Belgaum to Belagavi in Karnataka

etc.

Usually a simple Wikipedia lookup suffices to see what the original name was. India is remarkably well covered in Wikipedia.

Incidentally the name of the station in Bengaluru in question is Sir M Visweswaraya Terminal.

The medal for ultimate silliness in station names at present is taken by what used to be Madras Central which now is named:

Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. M.G. Ramachandran Central Railway Station (Chennai). People simply refer to it as Chennai Central.

 

[west point]

It is really confusing to us who do not know any other country's geography. I might suggest a pinned overall map of a country (India in this case) references to actual locations that are cited. Then the link to open railway map for those of us who might follow the post more closely.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

The medal for ultimate silliness in station names at present is taken by what used to be Madras Central which now is named:

Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. M.G. Ramachandran Central Railway Station (Chennai). People simply refer to it as Chennai Central.

I guess that's like the "William H Gray III 30th st. Station" in Philadelphia which is mostly referred to as just " 30th St." No disrespect intended towards the late Representative Gray but it is just easier to say.

 

[MARC Rider]

I guess that's like the "William H Gray III 30th st. Station" in Philadelphia which is mostly referred to as just " 30th St." No disrespect intended towards the late Representative Gray but it is just easier to say.

Let's not forget "Thurgood Marhsall BWI Airport Station," "Moynihan Train Hall," "Ronald Reagon National Airport," and a slew of other airports around the world named for people.

 

[jis]

It is really confusing to us who do not know any other country's geography. I might suggest a pinned overall map of a country (India in this case) references to actual locations that are cited. Then the link to open railway map for those of us who might follow the post more closely.

There is a reason that a Railway Map of India may not be the most helpful thing. People simply don't realize how dense the network in some parts of India is

See for example, straight from the Survey of India and this is the 2024 edition (PDF): Railway Map of India 2024

That is why I suggest that when you want to look up some place either look for it in Wikipedia and/or Google it or look for it on one of the online map systems like Google Maps for example.

And if you really want to look up details I would recommend my friend Samit Roychoudhury's excellent "The Great Indian Railway Atlas 4th Edition". It is a substantial paperback book has every detail of every nook and cranny of Indian Railways and Bangladesh Railways and also includes schematics of every Metro in India upto 2022. You can look it up at: https://indianrailstuff.com/online-railmaps/

 

[caravanman]

Nice to see "The Great Indian Railway Atlas" getting a mention. I bought the previous edition from the India Rail Museum in Delhi a few years ago, very detailed indeed.
I used to like to purchase "Trains at a Glance", a comprehensive India timetable available from most station bookstalls, but I think it is now only available by mail order?
All the train timetable information is now available online anyway.

 

[jis]

Nice to see "The Great Indian Railway Atlas" getting a mention. I bought the previous edition from the India Rail Museum in Delhi a few years ago, very detailed indeed.
I used to like to purchase "Trains at a Glance", a comprehensive India timetable available from most station bookstalls, but I think it is now only available by mail order?
All the train timetable information is now available online anyway.

Indeed, the best source of time table and running status information in my experience is the website https://indiarailinfo.com/. It has not only the scheduled arrival and departure at stations where a train stops, but also the passing time for each station where it does not stop!

It is a site that is run crowdsourced by the rail fan community. It is quite remarkable actually. Incidentally that site also has a Railway Map.

There is information about composition of consists of each train, how many consists are used and where the consists are homed, what locomotive links are used for a train normally, the type of locomotive used, and the home shed to which they belong etc.

The site also aspires to have (not quite there yet) detailed information on accommodation availability, waiting list (WL) and Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) status on each train(an Indian thing that is not something people would be familiar with in the US)

Here is an example train specific page for train 12301 Howrah - New Delhi Rajdhani Express. Notice the amount of detail including information such as which platform the train normally uses at each station, which trains it crosses and overtakes etc.!