The rise, fall, and return of Bhatiapara rail
Once a vital rail–river link connecting Kolkata, Dhaka, and the jute trade of Faridpur, the Bhatiapara line declined with time and river erosion before returning decades later under a new railway project
I feel the pleasant warmth of the sun shining brightly in the deep blue sky on a December morning. A small crowd is scattered across the platform near the entrance to Rajbari Railway Station. The platform is bathed in sunlight, where a man in a yellow crew-neck shirt and black trousers is sweeping litter from the adjacent tracks with a broom.
Birds and pigeons often come down onto the platform but fly away before people get too close. Some of them perch high on the weathered red trusses of the canopy. Their constant, rhythmic chirping makes the platform, where I am waiting for the Bhatiapara Mail train, feel alive.
The long wait is finally over as the train rolls into the station, with some passengers already on board. Like most local trains in Bangladesh, its worn carriages have a bluish exterior with two parallel yellow stripes along the bottom. Depending on the route, it operates under two names – Rajbari Mail and Bhatiapara Mail.
Situated on the bank of the mighty Padma River, Rajbari district is affectionately called the daughter of the Padma and bears a rich history of waterway connectivity in what was then East Bengal. Goalanda Ghat, at the confluence of the Padma and the Jamuna rivers, was a major steamer terminal that connected Kolkata with Dhaka. Apart from offering regular services, the steamer companies also arranged pleasure trips to attract passengers.
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Rajbari became even more important after it came under the rail network in 1871. The Eastern Bengal Railway built the Kushtia–Goalanda section as an extension of the Darshana–Kushtia line. Train passengers from Kolkata would get off at Goalanda and then board steamers to reach Narayanganj and Dhaka.
Pulling out of Rajbari station, our train gathers speed along this historic line and soon makes its first halt at Surjanagar, where the dilapidated station building looks more like a railway relic than a functional office. Political graffiti, including demands for the death penalty, mark the faded red walls, and the corrugated tin sheets shading the veranda have rusted away. As masonry work is underway to build a platform, passengers have to disembark onto a narrow wall and tread cautiously to reach the ground.
The agricultural land on the way to the next station, Belgachhi, is in a transitional phase. The rice fields are left with stubble, resting before the next sowing cycle begins, while some crops still linger in other fields. Between them, random patches of bright yellow mustard fields breathe new life into the post-harvest landscape.
More and more mustard fields emerge until we reach Kalukhali Junction, its platform vast enough to accommodate several badminton courts. But there is no badminton being played. Instead, I see an old man doing woodwork, a young man sleeping in the shade of a big tree, and a woman stirring parboiled paddy with her feet as it dries in the sun.
The halt here is long, as the locomotive will be reversed for the next leg of the journey, giving me some time to walk around. Political and other placards hang from several weathered red pillars supporting the platform canopy. A snack shop under the canopy serves customers.
Bhatiapara, a rural area in Kashiani upazila of Gopalganj, lies on the bank of the Madhumati River. A branch line on the Kushtia–Goalanda section linked it to Kalukhali via Faridpur during the British period in 1932, and trains ran until the route's closure in 1997. When services were restored in 2013 as part of the Padma Bridge rail link project, 13 old station buildings were remodelled.
Ramdia, the first station after Kalukhali, sits next to a sugarcane field. It has a small whitish building and several red-tiled benches on the platform. The next station, Baharpur, has a larger building with two gated entrances side by side at the centre, as well as sliding windows.
Jute from Bhatiapara was famous in Kolkata at the time. It used to be transported by large vessels. We called them panshi boats.
But at Ghorakhali, there is neither a station building nor a platform. A nearby pinkish building houses a mosque, and next to it the station name is scrawled on a small weathered signboard mounted on rusty metal posts. Due to the absence of a platform, boarding the train is difficult for women, elderly people, and hawkers.
It is a very scenic route that mirrors the beauty of the countryside, with lush green tree lines, small and large ponds, and a mix of cultivated and harvested farmland. Small tin-roofed houses sometimes appear from dense clusters of coconut, betel nut, banana, and other trees. Children play in the yards, laundry hangs from bamboo poles outside houses and from the metal railings of stations, and sticks coated with cow dung lie on the ground to dry in the sun.
The pinkish-white plumes of Saccharum spontaneum, known as kashful in Bengali, adorn many trackside fields. But what steals the show is the calm, shimmering water of Chapada Beel, which appears after Ghorakhali station. The water near the edge looks greenish, reflecting the lush waterside vegetation.
A traditional wooden boat floats on the water, and another is moored to the shore. I spot a small tin-roofed house by the water, with several plastic chairs laid out in the yard. Beyond the water lie green fields, dense trees, and small houses.
Most of the stations on this route are in Faridpur, a district known as the jute capital of Bangladesh. Along its western boundary flows the Madhumati River, which separates Dhaka division from Khulna. The district is also well known as the birthplace of Jasim Uddin, who holds the title Palli Kabi.
Elevated rail tracks run parallel to ours on the way to Kashiani Junction, which has a modern footbridge entirely covered by a blue canopy. A deep blue signboard displaying the station's name in Bengali and English is mounted on a building next to the main station structure. Painted in peach and cream, the building houses a waiting room with an elegant dark brown entrance featuring carved patterns.
In the late afternoon, the train pulls into Bhatiapara Ghat, which adjoins a large field where young boys play and cows graze. Across the platform are small houses shaded by big trees. The end of the platform marks the beginning of Bhatiapara Bazar, the main local marketplace, with tin-roofed shops on both sides of the tracks.
I amble along the tracks and reach the very point where a makeshift wooden barrier marks the abrupt end of the line. The barrier is placed against posts resembling a buffer stop. Behind it are two shops – one with green walls and the other with blue.
A short walk from there is the bank of the Madhumati River, its tranquil water bathed in the orange hues of the sun, which will soon disappear below the horizon. Geobags are stacked along the bank to prevent erosion. On one side, the water reflects a blue railway bridge built for the new Dhaka–Jashore line under the Padma rail link project.
"I saw steam-powered trains here. There were wooden sleepers," Sharif Ayub-ur-Rahman, an elderly local man, tells me, sitting in a medicine shop at Bhatiapara Bazar. He has grey hair, a thick white beard, and a large belly that makes it difficult for him to button the lower part of his shirt. While looking for someone in the market who could tell me stories about Bhatiapara railway from the past, I met him by chance.
"The tracks stretched far ahead from here but were destroyed by river erosion. There was a warehouse, which was also gobbled up by the Madhumati. A large stretch of what you now see as the river was railway land. Even the land on which Bhatiapara Bazar now sits is owned by the railway," he says.
He boastfully recalls his role as a freedom fighter in 1971 and how Bhatiapara gained independence on December 19, three days after Bangladesh's official Victory Day. He studied for a pass degree at what was then Jagannath College in Dhaka and spent time with friends in Old Dhaka. He lived at the Sonali Bank colony in Motijheel for several years.
"In the old days, Bhatiapara Bazar was a thriving hub of commerce. Many Marwaris lived here and were involved in the jute trade," he says.
Sharif runs this shop, which is actually a veterinary clinic. He mentions several times that only freedom fighters are allowed to sit inside the clinic for an extended chat, implying that I have been offered a privilege. He has substantial wealth, which comes from a large amount of land inherited from his father as well as the ownership of several businesses.
"There he comes," Sharif says, pointing to an old man walking slowly towards the clinic. The man, wearing a maroon cardigan over a light aqua shirt and a multi-coloured lungi, steps inside and takes a seat. He is Sharif's friend, Md Zafar Ali Mridha.
Zafar remembers the old Bhatiapara station from his childhood as a humble structure with a thatched roof, with tin sheets installed later. The platform was much lower, requiring passengers to climb up and jump down while boarding and disembarking from the train. The station had two station masters, and many railway employees lived in the old railway quarters that no longer exist.
Before the development of modern road networks, people from the southwestern districts would come to Bhatiapara by steamer to take the train. As a child, Zafar saw his parents host many guests who came to Bhatiapara from distant places to board trains. One of his maternal uncles was the station master of Satair station, located between Ghorakhali and Boalmari Bazar.
"We have heard of a railway engineer named K.B. Roy, who was instrumental in linking Bhatiapara to the rail network to ease his mother's journey. He lived less than a kilometre from here. But I would say the Kalukhali–Bhatiapara section was built to connect Dhaka and Khulna," he says, taking long pauses after every two or three words.
"Jute from Bhatiapara was famous in Kolkata at the time. It used to be transported by large vessels. We called them panshi boats," he recalls fondly.
The two friends have witnessed both the decline and the revival of rail services in their hometown. They now hope the Bhatiapara Mail will continue to run uninterrupted for years to come. With the day's last train having departed long ago, I hop onto a rickshaw van and head to the Bhatiapara bus station for my evening journey back to Dhaka.
