A glimpse from the past for Railfans from Lucknow. A few pictures and schedules from 1917.
Pic 1 - Lucknow railway station from the exterior. Note that this was in 1917. The beautiful present day station at Lucknow Charbagh wasn't constructed until the late 1920's.
Pic 4 - Map of the railway lines around Lucknow. Note that there is no separate station for the meter gauge lines (present day LJN). Both meter gauge and broad gauge lines were managed at Lucknow Junction (present day LKO). The yard and the station were extensively remodeled...
more... during the 1920's.
A brief description of the station here. (Attached layout of the station in Pic 8)
The station had one main platform, PF1 which handled the 2 main trains and other important trains in both directions. At the Delhi end of PF1, there was a short dock with 2 lines and an island platform in between (like the short lines at the end of the platform where locos are parked). This island platform was numbered 2. One side of PF2 had BG and the other side had a single MG track. Aishbagh station was the main MG station.
On the South side of the station, there was a very long platform which was split into two, with the Delhi end being numbered as PF4 and the Howrah end as PF3. There were 4 lines between PF1 and PF2/3.
Pic 2 - Look from the station looking towards Delhi. On the left side, you can see PF 4. The PF in the center (between the 2 trains) is PF1 and beside that is PF2. The coaches between PF1 and PF2 are through coaches running to Bombay. This was called the Bombay mail and used to run combined with the Punjab mail from Jhansi. The line to the far right in this picture is the MG line (no train in this picture).
Pic 3 - Look from the station looking towards BSB. The PF on the right is PF4. On the left the coaches are that of the Mughalsarai Peshawar mail. This train was extended to Howrah from October 1st, 1933 and is the present day 13005/06 Howrah Amritsar mail.
Pic 5, Pic 6 - Timings at LKO for passenger and mixed trains. Note that the line via Sultanpur was not constructed at this time. The line via Rae Bareilly was the main line and the line via Faizabad was considered the loop line.
Pic 7 - The steam loco shed at Lucknow station.