Egmore Railway Station
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The Egmore Station was completed in the year 1908.
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It was designed by Henry Irwin and built by a contractor whose name was Samynatha Pillai. Samynatha Pillai was from Bangalore he had also constructed the SIR stations of Madura and Trichinopoly.
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The Architecture of the station uses for the first time an Indo Sarcenic style mixed with Dravidian elements of Architecture.
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On the front porch of the Egmore Station the elephant logo of SIR, is still clearly visible.
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The station has a footfall of about 150,000 people daily, along with making an income of about 17 lakhs everyday.
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Scalloped arches remain a feature of Indo-Saracenic architecture, which represents a combination of Islamic designs and Indian architectural elements. British architects around the early 20th century developed this style in India.
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A close-up of a floral patterned carving on a column supporting the porch of Egmore Station.
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With typical Victorian wrought iron beams, it also has a clock with Roman numerals that does not work anymore, almost like an indicator of a timeless era.
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With cavernous interiors and wooden staircases it appears to be huge and peaceful. However of recent due to the number of people and vehicles accessing the station, it has become a place of chaos.
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The station has a dimension of 300ft by 70ft, making it larger than London’s Charing Cross Station.
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The Egmore Station building is located ideally in between two flyovers, and it has 11 platforms.
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Egmore station handles 35 main lines and 118 suburban trains; it remains an architectural example of the British Era, and an eye-catching red and white landmark within the city.
Over a 106 years old, the Egmore Railway Station in Chennai, remains one of the cities centrally located, renowned landmarks. Its bright red and white colors, and vaulted metal ceiling on the interiors are what make it striking.
Egmore Station was built on a site where there was a ‘tschultri’ (Which means a resting place where rooms and food is provided to visitors at affordable rates by a charitable institution); this ‘tschultri’ was converted by the East India Company into a fort-type of structure serving as a sanitarium for soldiers. By the early 20th century some portions of this land came to be owned by Senjee Pulnee Andy.
It was in the 1900’s that SIR – the South Indian Railway Company decided to build a proper terminus in the city. It was difficult to persuade Pulnee to part with any land until finally he gave in, to the Collector of Madras in the year 1904. He sold the land for Rs. 1,00,00.
This station was supposedly larger than London’s Charing Cross Station. It was designed by Henry Irwin and built by Samynatha Pillai. Interestingly for the first time it had incorporated an Indo Saracenic style with some Dravidian elements of Architecture.
