While travelling on the train have you ever wondered that the city name written on the railway station is attached with certain suffix like junction, terminal and central. what does it mean?
Don't worry because in this post I am going to tell you about different types of stations in Indian railway and meaning of suffix attached with the names.
The station are generally classified into four types:
Terminal or terminus stations are the last destination station of the train travelling between two station.
It means that train originating from source station terminate at terminal station.
Trains that arrives at terminal station goes back in the same direction from where it came by changing the engine position because one side track of such stations are closed and no trains can pass through this station since one side track is already closed.
For example: Train number 15025 Mau - Anvt Express that runs between Mau city to Anand Vihar originates from Mau and terminates at Anand Vihar therefore the station is called Anand Vihar terminal.
When there is more than one railway station in a city then there is a central station which is busiest and most important station among all the other stations present in that city.
It is not necessary that every big station is called central station. Actually any train that starts from other small station in that city must halt at central station of that city.
Central stations are also those stations that are very large and have large no. of platforms. These stations are very important and every small and large trains like express, superfast, rajdhani etc. halts at central stations.
For example : Kanpur central, Chennai Central etc.
Currently there are 5 central stations in India:
Junctions are those stations that connects 3 or more than three railway routes.
For example: Delhi Junction, Mathura Junction, Lucknow Junction etc.
Delhi junction connects more than 3 routes because Rajdhani trains from different states of Indian from different routes arrives at Delhi Junction.
Stations are normal stop where trains can come, halt and go. Such stations have only 2 ways.
For example Old Delhi Railway Station where train comes from one direction and goes to another direction.
It is not necessary that only train halts and goes on station but some train also originates from stations and terminates at stations.
Halts are those type of Railway stations that are situated in small villages or towns.
These are very small Railway stations having only one or maximum two platforms.
On these of railway stations only passengers and local trains stops for very small time.
Halts are sometime also used by trains to stop during crossing when there is single line and there are two trains that need to crossed.
Such stations that are situated few kilometres away from major cities and connect that city is called road.
For example Hazaribagh Road, Bhabua Road etc.
Such stations that are situated near to any military camp is called cantt.
For example Ambala Cantt etc.
PH stands for passenger halt. Such stations are free of railway employees which means that at this station you will not found any railway staff and even ticket are booked by private ticket counters.
At such stations only local or passengers train stops.