Alipurduar–Bamanhat branch line

The Cooch Behar State Railway (CBSR) was a 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) narrow gauge railway line that was built between Jayanti in the current Alipurduar district of West Bengal, India to Lalmonirhat in the current Lalmonirhat district in Bangladesh before partition between 1893 and 1898. The line originated from Jayanti near the foothills of Eastern Himalayas and went via Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, Dinhata and Gitaldaha to finally join the narrow-gauge track of Kaunia–Dharlla State Railway at Mogalhat. This line was later brought by Eastern Bengal Railway in 1899.[1]

The Kaunia–Dharlla State Railway was constructed as a narrow-gauge line from Teesta railway junction to Mogalhat on 1882 by Eastern Bengal Railway. As a part of linking with the 581 kilometres (361 mi) long Katihar–Raiganj–Dinajpur–Parbatipur–Rangpur–Kaunia main metre-gauge line the Kaunia–Mogalhat–Gitaldaha NG section was converted to metre gauge from 1901 to 1902. The 25.27 kilometres (15.70 mi) long Gitaldaha-Golakganj section was built as a part of the main metre-gauge line on 1902 via Bamanhat & Sonahat. This metre-gauge line was further extended to Amingaon via Fakiragram & Kokrajhar on 1906. The Jayanti–Gitaldaha junction section was converted to metre gauge on 1910.[2]

With the partition of India on 1947, the Assam links to Bengal were snapped. Further the Gitaldaha–Mogalhat rail transit point became defunct as the railway bridge over Dharla River was washed away in floods. The 72 kilometres (45 mi) Alipurduar–Bamanhat section and 47.7 kilometres (29.6 mi) Fakiragram-Golakganj sections were cutoff as well and became isolated metre gauge sections. As a part of the Assam Link project a 301.8 kilometres (187.5 mi) line was constructed between Kishanganj and Fakiragram in 1948. Thus these 2 sections became branch lines. Fakiragram was connected with a new 57.6 kilometres (35.8 mi) line via Boxirhat to New Coochbehar in 2010-12.