BNXR/Bidhan Nagar Road (4)

The station immediately after Sealdah on Sealdah Main and North Line is Bidhannagar Road (BNXR), 3 KM away. Its old name, Ultadanga Road, was changed around 1982. The next station is Dum Dum Junction wherefrom the line trifurcates, toward Naihati Jn, toward Barasat Jn, and toward Dankuni Jn, providing wider connectivity to the hinterland and the rest of the country.
We all know that Sealdah Station was commissioned in 1862. But was BNXR constructed in the same year? That is a question that haunts me. And I have presumptive logic on my side to think that the station was built much later, as a midway stopover between Sealdah and Dum Dum Junction.
The station immediately after Sealdah on Sealdah South Line is Park Circus, 3 KM away. The next station is...
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Ballygunge Junction wherefrom the line bifurcates, toward Mile 5B (now Lake Gardens) and Dhakuria to provide connectivity to vast hinterland of the Sunderbans. Park Circus Station came up in 1965, and was modernized in 2002 to act as a catalyst to the eastward expansion of the city. Is it illogical to find a symmetry with BNXR too.
Secondly, I had heard it in my childhood from elders that the stations came up during WWII. I do not know how far this version is credible, but well up to the Seventies; the station looked like an army office, improvised with corrugated sheets.
Thirdly, in architectural pattern, the station differs greatly from other stations of the Line. It looks somewhat upstart.
Fourthly, BNXR has an unorthodox configuration of platforms. Platform Number 1, catering to Suburban Up Line, starts between Catenry Post Number 2/39 and 3/1, goes low height for some time, up to 3/11 and then goes elevated. It ends at the Road Underpass, Post Number 3/21. Platform Number 2, catering to Main Up Line, starts with Catenry Post Number 3/11 and ends at the Road Underpass, at the base of the Giant FOB at 3/21. Platform Number 3, catering to Suburban Down, starts with Catenry Post Number 3/26 at the north of the Road Underpass and extends up to the Bridge over Krishnapur Canal at Catenry Post Number 3/35. Platform Number 4 caters mainly to morning and evening walkers. In addition it caters to Main Suburban Down. It starts at Catenry Post Number 3/14 and extends up to the Bridge over Bagjola Canal at Catenry Post Number 3/35.
The mid-strip narrowness, to accommodate two platforms on the same width on two sides of it one after the other instead of making a conventional-wisdom-dictated island platform, gives rise to the suspicion that the station was constructed well after the lines were laid, when it was no longer possible to re-align the tracks to make space for a robust island platform. Remember, in 1860s, land acquisition was never a problem. Had the station been originally contemplated, land would have been acquired here to make it identical with other stations of this stretch. The layout for all these stations of this stretch, well up to Ichapur, is: Platform Number 1 (westernmost), catering to Suburban Up Line, Platform Number 2, catering to Suburban Down, and Platform Number 3, catering to Main Up Line, are island platforms, and Platform Number 4 (easternmost) to Main Down Line. This symmetry is broken in BNXR, where Platform Numbers 2 and 3 mutually interchanged their roles.
Dum Dum is an old place, where, in Bara Kothi (Clive House) Lord Clive (1st Baron Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), reportedly plotted the domination of Bengal. Bara Kothi is one of the oldest buildings in Kolkata constructed before Siraj-ud-Daulah's invasion, But Bidhannagar Road is not so. The old name of the place is Ultadanga. In Bengali, it means inverted countryboat. It is said that in 1864 Calcutta Cyclone (October 5, killing around 60,000 people) a countryboat was flown away from the River Hooghly, some distance away, to this place and thus it acquired its name (the other version is village was on the other side of the Marhatta Ditch, on the bank opposite the then Calcutta, and refer to the boats which came for repair and were kept upturned. If we take the story as true, we are to presume that the place has no human habitation around 1864, two years after the commissioning of Sealdah, as had it been so, it would have a place name. Naturally, in the 1850s, the sahibs were not supposed to feel the need of a station there. The story of making it during WWII to provide logistical back up to the Army seems more logical. Incidentally, the eastward expansion of the city started around then.
But I have no authentic proof to prove my points. All these are circumstantial and empirical guesses. Does any railfan have any information about the past of BNXR?
Courtesy: Bappaditya Pal.