How old is the building?

Hi everyone,

As I walk through the indolent platforms of Thanjavur, my mind makes it a comparison with Chennai M G Ramachandiran Central , the station with the third lengthiest name and the busiest in South India. Thanjavur Junction is not as busy as we see in Chennai, it is calm but populated, small but spacious, and new but quaint. It has pockets of old abandoned buildings along with newly built platforms and escalators, just like months-old pickles with freshly made curd rice. Yeah, now the inner Sha wants to know if the curd rice was made by the Government of India who made those pickles! Since the city was not part of Madras presidency but a province under Tanjore Marathas it is unusual to see British buildings in this town. The fascinating history recalls the subsidiary alliance, that we studied in History books. Tanjore was one of the earliest to become a subsidiary of British and hence had a taste of British infrastructure at places. But do you know...When did the first train arrive in India?

Yes, it was in 1853 from Bombay to Thane. And, Thanjavurians did not wait for long to see trains running in their town.

 Yeah just 8 years after the first station, Thanjavur had its railway station at its current location. In the year 1861, the British built the humble railway station at the center of the town. It connects Vallam, a source of raw materials to Nagapattinam a port town to the east of Thanjavur, the route which my father recalls as an abandoned stretch of tracks. Though I wonder what the raw material found in this region as it currently does not hold any mineral of commercial value(except sand), there was some economic worth that attracted the British to function the railway lines till the independence.  Now, the old railway lines were discarded and restocked with police stations and bus stands connecting the extensive stretch across the city. However, the Junction remained the same for a long but the tracks were redesigned and updated as the state developed. And finally, this 163-year-old railway station is getting a new makeover under the smart city project. Will the smart station retain the heritage pinch of its own style?

Yours early waiting,

Harini Sha