Titbits from my Archives: Neyveli

by B M S Bisht, Retired GM, NFR

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(From an IRFCA post, May 2007.)

Commonly it is transport that develops an area but sometimes the reverse also happens. It happened at Neyveli in the south more than 40 years ago! In the early 1960's a 'condemned' (unfit for operational use) metre gauge 4-wheeler wooden officers inspection carriage or saloon was stabled in Neyveli yard to make it a 'station cum booking office'! The carriage was suitably partitioned to make it an expedient booking counter and the rest for the 'station' records etc. The only occupant was a forlorn railway booking clerk who would gaze sometimes all day long at the sky as he had hardly any one to sell tickets to! Except a few stragglers the whole area was a vast expanse of nothingness! But fortunately the scenario changed sooner than expected with a dramatic rise in lignite exploitation at Neyveli. The carriage became nostalgia with a small respectable building came up with a proper station master's office, a parcel office, a goods shed, a vending stall, and a small covered shed on the (only) platform with drinking water, etc.

The picture of this station then in Southern Railway's in-house journal 'Southrail News' of April 1964 shows it as a roadside block station with 3 lines and the passenger amenities and facilities described above on the only platform.

Will some rail fan give a brief description of Neyveli station as it is now with other interesting facts and figures with the section on which it is situated. It must be a B. G. station now. I could not trace it on the TAAG ('Trains at a Glance') map. Perhaps it is still too small a station to count on an all-India basis!