On the first line
When India's first passenger train ran from Bori Bunder to Thane in April 1853, Byculla railway station (code BY) was one of the original stations on the route. More than 170 years later it is still a working stop on the Central line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway, and one of Mumbai's five heritage railway stations.
Three stations on one site
- 1852–53: the first Byculla station is a simple wooden structure, about 500 metres south of today's station.
- 1857: it is rebuilt in stone.
- 1 July 1892: the present station building opens.
- 4 December 1905: the Byculla–Currey Road section is quadrupled to cope with suburban growth.
The GIPR's first workshops
Byculla wasn't just a station. In 1854, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway set up its first workshops here on about 18 acres, where the company's early locomotives and carriages were maintained, a forerunner of the great railway works later built at Parel and Matunga.
Restored and recognised
Byculla is a Grade-I heritage structure. Its restoration began in July 2019 and was completed on 29 April 2022, a project initiated by the citizens' group I Love Mumbai with the railways, funded through the Bajaj group's CSR programme and carried out with conservation architects Abha Narain Lambah Associates. In July 2023 the work won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award of Merit for cultural heritage conservation, rare recognition for a busy suburban stop.
The station
Around Byculla
- The Jijamata Udyan (Rani Baug) botanical garden and zoo and the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai's oldest museum, are a short walk away.
- Local train timings are in our train timetable.