As of today, it is well known that the western-most railway station in India is Varvala (long 68.97E) and the western-most terminus is Okha (69.07E)
The western-most junction was thought to be Kanalus (69.90E) but it is actually Wansjaliya (69.86E), which means about 4 km between the lines of longitude.
However, the western-most junction in the past was Khambaliya, which had a branch to the port of Salaya until the 1970s. Its longitude is 69.66E
The railway line up to Naliya (68.84E) has been closed for conversion to broad gauge for several years. This work is now progressing from Bhuj and may be completed in 2021. It is proposed to extend this line to Vayor (68.69E) which is north-west of Naliya.
So Varvala and Okha will lose their titles when the trains start running to Naliya.
The western-most airport with regular commercial flights is Bhuj (69.21E). While Bhuj has an IAF base, the military airport furthest west is the Naliya air base (near Naliya Cantt station) which is at 68.87E. It is known that the IAF has a helipad at Koteshwar on the coast at 68.53E. Naliya has fighter aircraft, and their Mig-21s shot down a Pakistani recconaissance aircraft close to the border in 1999.
Bhuj airport’s competitor is Porbandar at 69.64E. It includes enclaves of the Navy as well as the Coast Guard who also fly from there.
In due course the railway may reach Koteshwar. That is quite close to the western-most point of India, which is not as ill-defined as the northern-most point. This point on the mainland is 68.48E, while the western-most village appears to be Guhar Moti at 68.49E
You can amuse yourself with finding these places on this map link:
This is the station before the terminus at Baramulla. If one looks at the map carefully, it can be seen that it is further north.
In case the proposed line from Baramulla to Kupwara is built in the future, the latter will become the northernmost station. There is also a proposed line to Leh from Himachal Pradesh, but Leh is around the same latitude as Srinagar.
Now, the Kashmir valley line from Banihal to Baramulla is not connected to the rest of the IR network (although this gap can be bridged in a 4-hour road journey from Udhampur to Banihal). The northernmost station on the IR network used to be Udhampur, which is now superseded by
These lines were always BG.
Now we move east. The easternmost station presently served by passenger trains is
However, goods trains run further east for a few km to Tirap Siding where coal is loaded. Although I could not find a picture with this sign, there is this video of a road trip along this route with plenty of coal wagons:
Still further ahead is this now defunct station which was functioning from the late 1950s to the 1990s, when the MG line was converted only up to Tirap Siding as it was not considered worthwhile to extend the BG line here:
Lekhapani was thus the easternmost point of the Indian Railways, but not now. However, it is now planned to reopen this station after the last stretch of a few km is converted to BG.
This plaque can be seen near Lekhapani station:
Still further east are the Tipong colliery railways (2’0″ NG) which are NOT and never were part of IR, though we will take a quick look at them here:
These colliery lines have some B class locos which were earlier on the Darjeeling line. There are several longer videos of these lines on Youtube.
The main line even features in the 1972 film “Ye Gulistan Hamara”. If you are really interested you can see the film on Youtube, though the trains appear only for a couple of minutes. If you like typical Bollywood films of the 1970s and are fans of Dev Anand and Sharmila Tagore, you might as well see it.
A small 2’0″ industrial line was earlier functioning at a plywood factory at Namsai in Arunachal Pradesh, though this was also nothing to do with IR.
A new line from a point near Makum to Parshuram Kund has been proposed. When completed, this will be the easternmost station much further east than the collieries at Ledo.
Now to the south. That is easy enough. This line was built with BG.
And for the west, there is
Like Sopore, it is not a terminus but is further west than the larger station of Dwarka and the terminus of Okha. Dwarka is the westernmost station of some importance.
This line was MG and was converted to BG around 1980.
Varvala had this status for a long time. Then the Bhuj-Naliya MG line was built and Naliya became the westernmost station (with a lateral distance of about 10 km). The line from Bhuj to Naliya was closed for several years and now has been taken up for conversion to BG. When the line is completed, Naliya will regain the position-although there are plans to extend the line further west. No picture of Naliya station is seen on the net, so here is one of the next station Naliya Cantt, which is adjacent to the IAF base:
(Google Maps needs to be corrected as Naliya Cantt station is marked as Naliya station.)
Next we will see what the extreme points were in the 1970s.
the westernmost point of India is Guhar Moti in Lakhpat taluk of Kutch district of Gujarat. This article mentions that it is at 23.71307 N, 68.03215 E. This appears to be wrong as it gives a point in the sea. However, the village of Guhar Moti is actually at 23.6076 N, 68.5022 E
More about this place can be seen here and in line 55 of this
We note that the population of 242 (in the last census) includes 186 belonging to the scheduled castes, 55 to the scheduled tribes and 1 in the general category. In line 56, we see the nearby pilgrimage centre of Narayan Sarovar with a population of 1156. This is larger than the taluk HQ of Lakhpat which is described as a ghost town with a population of 500-odd. It did figure in the 2000 film “Refugee”, which marked the debut of Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor.
Some say that the temple at Koteshwar near Narayan Sarovar is the westernmost point of India, but you can see from the above link to Google maps that this is not true.
Remote as this area may be, it is well connected with roads. There was even a proposal to connect Koteshwar by rail to the nearest railhead at Naliya, but that may have to wait until the closed line from Bhuj to Naliya is converted from metre gauge to broad gauge. Naliya is also the site of India’s westernmost air force base, which hosts Mig-21 fighter aircraft. One of them shot down a Pakistani Navy aircraft near the border in 1999 (more about this below).
This part of Kutch district has a number of industries, mainly based on lignite (brown coal) which is mined nearby. The westernmost industrial unit in India may well be the Akrimota lignite power station on the coast, at 23.7721 N, 68.6442 E.
An overall view of the India-Pakistan border can be seen here
Note the complex border around the Sir Creek. The border is also disputed here, as India and Pakistan differ on the interpretation of a treaty signed between the government of Sind and the ruler of Kutch in 1914. The basic issue here is connected with borders formed by rivers-what happens when the river changes course? More details about the dispute and ongoing negotiations can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Creek
Some literature mentions that the lights of Karachi can be seen from Koteshwar. This may not be true as the distance from here to the centre of Karachi is 200 km.
The border here consists of uninhabited marshlands, which are flooded during the monsoons. Patrolling by boats and aircraft is carried out by both countries. Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rann_of_Kutch
The Kutch war of 1965 did not concern this area and was confined to the northern borders of Kutch.
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