Ernakulam Junction railway station

Ernakulam Junction railway station is the biggest & major railway junction station in the city of Kochi in Kerala, India. At, it is the second largest in terms in passenger revenues in Kerala and the fifth largest of the Southern Railway. It is an A1 classified station operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways and comes under the Thiruvananthapuram railway division. Ernakulam Junction Railway Station is the only Station in Kerala State directly interlinked with the proposed Kochi Metro Rail before the Metro entry to S.A.Road,Kadavanthra Region.HistoryErnakulam Jn was first opened as Ernakulam South in 1932 when the meter gauge line then terminating at Ernakulam Terminus was extended from Pachalam to the Cochin Harbor Terminus Station on the Willingdon Island for proximity to the Kochi Port. Ernakulam North, Perumanur, Mattanchery Halt and CHTS were the newly opened stations on the route. In 1946 the station was converted into broad gauge as part of the Shoranur-CHTS line, linking it directly to the rest of India via the Mangalore-Jolarpet mainline at Shoranur Jn. In 1956 the Ernakulam-Kottayam meter gauge line was opened and further extended to Kollam in 1958, joining to the Kollam-Trivandrum line, connecting Ernakulam with Trivandrum for the first time.Since the opening of the Kottayam line made it a junction, Ernakulam South was renamed Ernakulam Junction, and Ernakulam North was renamed Ernakulam Town. This was what made Ernakulam Jn rise to prominence, which was until then just a small wayside station en route to the much busier Cochin Harbour Terminus station. Until 1979 when the Kottayam line was converted into broad gauge, ERS had both broad and meter gauge tracks. As the coastal line to Alappuzha was opened in 1989, Ernakulam Jn rose to the status of the most premier railway station in central Kerala.