Shantipur Junction (STB), ER-Sealdah Division

Journey Plan and Objectives:

• This journey was planned well before my practical exams in September's last week. My odd semester exam (SEM-5) ended at Dec 15. Don't know what I am gonna score but atleast poor attendance (lt 10%, no kidding. min 75% needed) was covered by the college smoothly.

Objective-1

• Visit the station for the first time. Take a look at the line towards Krishnanagar City JN (KNJ). Get some photos of the station board.

Objective-2

• [REDACTED]

Journey Logs

• 1. Reached IP at 0550
  2. Boarded SDAH-RHA local (31613) at 0622 right before 31513 SDAH-STB at 0639 unwillingly cause there was a shady guy at the station being dangerous and the RPF/GRPF was in deep sleep.
  3. Landed on station Payradanga (PDX) PF 1 at 0730 right before Ranaghat (RHA). This is because our train 31613 was gonna halt at PF 5/6 at RHA and we may have missed 31513 probably scheduled at PF 1 which was right next to 613. Total distance between IP and PDX = 41 kms Time taken by 31613 = 70 minutes (didn't have signal between KNR and NH)
  4. 31513 arrived PDX at approx 0740
  5. 0801 Our train departed Kalinarayanpur JN (KLNP).
  6. Ok, I didn't expected 31513 to reach the destination on it's scheduled time at 0815, but it did arrived at STB at a perfect 0815.

What's so special about Shantipur?

• Noting much for most of the people in the world. Its personal preference.
• Besides that Shantipur is famous for,
• 1. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's area and Ras Yatra. Born in present Nabadwip Dham (NDAE, I had also visited this station in Jan 2022) which is just in opposite across the Hoogly river from Shantipur. He used to dwell in those areas. So obviously many scriptures and temples regarding that are present there. Mahaprabhu Chaitanya is considered to be one of Lord Vishnu's Avatar.
• 2. Various Suti Sarees are exported all around India from Shantipur.
• 3. Invention of Rasgulla (debated). It was said to be first made in Phulia (FLU) which near Shantipur.
• 4. Birth place of Krittibas Ojha. He was a medival Bengali poet (13-1400 AC) who translated The Epic Ramayana into Bengali. There is a staion made dedicated to his name Bathna Krittibas (BTKB). It is a halt station which most of the trains in that route skips except during Ras Yatra.

Return

• Choosen train for return was 31526 at around 1312 but returned early with 31524 at 1130.
• Rake : 10k series SER transferred NKG 9-car
• BTW I had also visited the BT-HNB route and BT-DDJ-SDAH route on Nov 19. Also explored those route for the first time.

Galleries:

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  Line towards Krishnanagar City JN with one intermediate halt a Dignagar. MPS 25 kmph. Only one train a day. 31585 RHA-KNJ local via STB. The train has a halt of 70 minutes at STB. RHA carshed 12 coach 11k series old ICF rake.

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  31613 ---> 31513
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Why Shantipur is a Junction Station?

• When people think of a junction station they generally think that a line comes and gets divided into two or more directions. Like Naihati JN where 4 tracks come from DDJ and 2 tracks goes towards BDC crossing the Hoogly river and 2 (+1 in progress) tracks goes towards KYI. It is like 'Y' shaped. --<
• But for STB it is like upside down 'V' symbol. Like this, Ʌ, except the vertex is not that sharo, it's curved.
• Shantipur is providing an alternate route towards Krishnanagar City other than the SDAH main line via KNLP. So there are 2 lines for KNJ, RHA-KNLP-KNJ and RHA-KNLP-STB-KNJ. During the days of protest at Badkulla station in KNLP KNJ route Express trains towards Murshidabad/Lalgola (e.g. Bhagirati express, Dhano Dhanye express) used to go through the 2nd route.
• But the STB-DTG-KNJ route is very very underrated. MPS is 25 kmph due to no level crossing in that 15 km route. MPS at KNLP-STB route is 80 kmph, bit slower than the SDAH main route (MPS: 100 kmph)

Resources:

31513 SDAH-STB Local 31585 RHA-KNJ Local via STB 31524 STB-SDAH Local