75 years of Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway Station Building
Trivandrum Central has achieved the honour of being the biggest railway station in Kerala as well as one of the significant rail hubs in South India. Trivandrum Central railway station is well connected with major parts of India. The building of the station is considered a landmark of the city.
On 4th of January 1918 a rail route in Thiruvananthapuram started operating with the extension of the Madras-Quilon rail route to this city, which was the Princely State of Travancore. The terminal was built at the business centre of Chakka but the track was widened to the city centre under the supervision of the then Dewan of Travancore, M.E. Watts. In 1931, the Thiruvananthapuram Central started serving as the main terminal in the city. The station building was completed during the sovereignty of the Travancore queen, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi.
On 4th of November 1931 the station building began serving as the main railway terminal of a secondary route in Thiruvananthapuram. Only rocks were used to build the station and the Travancore queen Sethu Lakshmi Bayi transformed it into the main city terminal as a paragon to other important stations in the country. The station had then one platform and two departures on a daily basis.
In 2004, a second terminal was opened at the Trivandrum Central railway station in order to manage the increasing traffic that the station was experiencing for last few years. This newer part of the station is completely Wi-Fi enabled. Like other railway stations, the Trivandrum Central railway station has book-shops, restaurants, accommodation, Internet browsing centres and even a necessary commodities shopping mall. In 2005, a second satellite station was opened near the International Airport at Kochuveli.
Currently the Thiruvananthapuram Central Station features 12 platforms that serve the trains travelling on long routes as well as short routes to and from Thiruvananthapuram, the station being accessible through two main entryways. The Central Bus Station of Thiruvananthapuram faces the primary entry and the second one opens to the Power House Road towards the east of the station, which is adjoined by the railway care centre of Thiruvananthapuram Central. The secondary terminals serving along the rail route across Thiruvananthapuram are the Kochuveli Railway Station and the Nemom Railway Station, the Kochuveli Railway Station being already operational serving the trains arriving at and departing from Thiruvananthapuram Central.
