Status Operational Stations 10 Owner Indian Railway | Locale North Bengal Opened 1878 | |
Termini Haldibari
New Jalpaiguri | ||
The Haldibari–New Jalpaiguri line connecting Haldibari in Cooch Behar district and New Jalpaiguri in Jalpaiguri district in the Indian state of West Bengal, was since 1878 part of the Kolkata–Siliguri broad-gauge route. With the partition of India in 1947, while the main part of the route lay in Pakistan, later Bangladesh, the two ends of the route lying in India were detached. (For more details see Howrah–New Jalpaiguri line). However, the route continued to be operational till the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Thereafter, the route has been closed. The rest of the line has been in use in the respective countries.
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Gauge changes
The Silguri–Haldibari line has gone through two successive gauge changes. As most other railway tracks in the area were metre gauge, the line was converted from broad gauge to metre gauge in 1949. Then in the nineteen sixties when broad gauge was introduced in the area in keeping with the policy of Project Unigauge of Indian Railways, the line was converted back to broad gauge and connected to the new station at New Jalpaiguri.
Haldibari–Chilahati
There are proposals to reoperationalise the Haldibari-Chilahati section. Bangladesh Railway will have to construct 7.5 kilometres of new rail tracks from Chilahati to reach the border while the Indian authorities have to set up 4.5 kilometres of tracks from its border to Haldibari railway station.
In the Joint Statement issued on the occasion of the visit of the Prime Minister of India to Bangladesh, on 7 September 2011, it was stated: " Bangladesh Prime Minister expressed her appreciation to the Indian Prime Minister for amendment of the MoU between the Bangladesh and Indian Railways allowing Rohanpur-Singabad as an additional route for both bulk and container cargo for Nepalese rail transit traffic. Bangladesh side also appreciated the assistance from India for the movement of fertilizers from Bangladesh to Nepal by rail route. They also agreed to re-establish rail connections between Chilahati-Haldibari and Kulaura-Mahishashan in the spirit of encouraging revival of old linkages and transport routes between the two countries."
Bangladesh started export of fertilizer to Nepal utilizing the Rahanpur-Singhabad transit point in November 2011.