The end of the line, literally
Kanniyakumari station carries the most fitting code on Indian Railways: CAPE. It is the southernmost railway station on the Indian mainland, about 1 km from the beach at Kanyakumari, the cape where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. Opened in 1979, it is a terminus at the end of the short Nagercoil–Kanniyakumari line.
India's longest train journeys
Because it sits at the bottom of the map, Kanniyakumari is the end point of some of India's longest train journeys:
- The Vivek Express to Dibrugarh in Assam runs India's longest train route, more than 4,000 km, via Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati.
- The Himsagar Express to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra in Jammu and Kashmir, about 70 hours end to end, is among the longest-running trains in the country.
Riding one of them end to end is a bucket-list journey for many rail enthusiasts. Timings are on the train timings page.
The station
CAPE has 5 platforms on 7 tracks, about 36 metres above sea level. It belongs to Southern Railway's Thiruvananthapuram division, is graded NSG-4, and is one of 73 Tamil Nadu stations selected for the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme.
The coastal line that wasn't
A proposed coastal railway from Chennai to Kanyakumari via Cuddalore, Karaikudi, Ramanathapuram and Tuticorin was shelved by the Railway Board in 2018, so trains still reach the cape from the north via Nagercoil.
At land's end
- Kanyakumari is one of the few places in India where both sunrise and sunset can be watched over the sea, and both draw crowds to the shore.
- Ferries run to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Thiruvalluvar statue just offshore.
- Padmanabhapuram Palace, the old Travancore palace, is a short drive north.