Chennai Egmore railway station

Chennai Egmore (formerly known as Madras Egmore) is a railway station in Egmore, Chennai (Madras), South India. The station acts as the arrival and departure point for trains connecting Chennai and southern, central Tamil Nadu and Kerala. This is one of the two main railway terminals in the city along with Chennai Central (Madras Central), which serves the north and west bound trains from the city. However, some trains to the north-east and eastern parts of the country also start from/pass through here, though the number is much fewer than the ones from Chennai Central. The Chennai Beach—Tambaram suburban railway line also passes through the station. The building of the railway station with decorative domes is one of the prominent landmarks of Chennai. This station is known in Tamil as Ezhumbur. Over 75% of the trains starting from Chennai Egmore station pass through Trichy at different times. The Chennai Egmore station has a platform which allows vehicles to be driven up almost to the side of the train—to allow for easy loading/unloading of baggage and passengers.
The station was apparently constructed from 1906 on land purchased from Pulney Andy, The building is built in the Gothic style of architecture with imposing domes and corridors. It is one of the prominent landmarks of the city of Chennai. The recently opened northern entrance to this railway station is on the arterial Poonamalee High road in Chennai city.

History says that the station was actually a fort, called the Egmore Redo, similar to the Leeds Castle, which is a part of Santhome. It is said that the station came up in a place that once used to store ammunition for the British.

The station building was constructed on a 2.5-acre land, for which 1.8 acres was acquired from Dr. Paul Andy who, in his letter to the 'Collector of Madras,' initially refused to sell his property owing to the difficulty with which he had purchased and developed the property. However, the South Indian Railway (SIR) Company, which was then operating train services to the south, persuaded him to sell the land, for which Andy claimed  100,000 as compensation. After acquiring the land, the SIR invited Henry Irwin, CIE (chief engineer), who did much of latter day Indo-Saracenic in Madras, and E. C. Bird, company architect, to design a building to suit the traffic need. After several alterations in the plan, the construction work began in September 1905 and was completed in 1908. It was constructed by contractor T. Samynada Pillai of Bangalore at a cost of  1.7 million. The station was officially opened on 11 June 1908.