Unique instances on the Indian Railways

There are many oddities on the Indian Railways. Here are some which occur only once in the entire system.

A station where at least one regular passenger train stops but EMUs do not stop: Sanatnagar, west of Secunderabad. EMUs run through this station which has a large goods yard. They stop at Bharatnagar which is about 1 km away. This was probably because proper road access was not possible at Sanatnagar.

Division which continues with the old name of the HQ station. Numerous cities have had their names changed over the last two decades. Examples include Mumbai, Chennai, Vadodara, Palakkkad, Tiruvananthapuram and Prayagraj. When the station name was changed, the division name was changed EXCEPT for Waltair/Visakhapatnam where the old name of Waltair (on the East Coast Railway) continues. I am not sure why this is so.

Yes, there is a Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya division on ECR.

Station names-the only one with the suffix of “new” is Bhubaneswar New.

The only well-known station starting with “old” is Old Malda. There is also Old Sachivalaya Halt on the Digha branch from Patna, which is probably closed. Some obscure sidings and yards with names starting with “old”  and the various directions can be found through the station index on RBS.

With the prefix West, there is West Hill on SR and West Point Halt near Darjeeling. For the latter,  no platform seems to exist now. There is a tiny sign.

With the suffix West: Ratangarh West, earlier Hudera. Presently there is Tirupati West and Kulitturai West (also open) and Guntakal West (no passenger service now, but may have stoppages in future).

The only case of prefix North is at North Lakhimpur on NFR. (and the lesser known North Panakudi on SR).

While Ernakulam Town was called Ernakulam North in the past, local people refer to it as North station. Similarly for Ernakulam Town, formerly Ernakulam South. These old names only existed in the period from the early 1940s to late 1950s, but still persist in local usage.

No cases of prefixes of Central, South, East. (Even though there are countries like the Central African Republic, South Korea and the former East Germany and East Timor).

Some large yards have cabins with names like   ***** West Outer Cabin or ****West Central Cabin.