Industry Railways Headquarters Cooch Behar, India Services Rail transport | Founded 1894 Area served Koch Bihar Established 1894 | |
Cooch Behar State Railway (CBSR) was a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway from Jayanti to Lalmonirhat in the Indian state of West Bengal.
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History
Nripendra Narayan, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, established Cooch Behar State Railway in 1893-98. After some deliberations and discussions with the British authorities about their plans, it was decided in 1891-92 to build a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) wide narrow gauge railway from the southern bank of the Torsa opposite Cooch Behar town to Gitaldaha, a station on the tracks of Eastern Bengal Railway connecting Dhubri with Lalmonirhat, now in Bangladesh. The line was constructed with the following stations: Torsa, Dewanhat, Chawrahat, Gitaldaha and Gitaldaha Ghat. It was opened for goods traffic from 15 September 1893 and for passenger traffic from 1 March 1894. Cooch Behar town was connected after a bridge was built on the Torsa and the line was extended to Alipurduar, Buxa and Jainti near the India-Bhutan border. The complete line measuring 53.5 miles was opened in 1901. It was converted to 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) wide metre gauge in 1910. The railway system was operated by Eastern Bengal Railway. In 1932, only two trains ran on the route – one in the morning and the other in the evening. In early 1950s, the system was amalgamated with Indian Railways as a part of North Eastern Railway (now North East Frontier Railway).
Conversion to broad gauge
The line was converted to 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) wide broad gauge in 2007.