India - Bangladesh train service to resume after 11 yrs

Rail services between India and Bangladesh through the Radhikapur border in North Dinajpur will resume from the end of this month after 11 years.

The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) today made a trial run with a diesel locomotive to test the tracks from Radhikapur to the end of the zero point along the international border. According to sources in the NFR, goods train services would be started from the end of this month.

"The railway track connecting Dinajpur, now in Bangladesh, to Calcutta via Radhikapur was built in 1857. It was a metre-gauge track and was converted to broad gauge in 2005 and movement of metre-gauge trains stopped. Yesterday, the conversion of the tracks from Radhikapur till the zero point, a distance of 400m was completed. The Bangladesh railways have also finished their gauge conversion," said an NFR source.

The source said three years ago the Bangladesh railways had converted the tracks from Dinajpur to Birol station.

The NFR chief engineer Bhagwan Saheb said the railway ministry had started the initiative in June this year.(TT)