A Railway Station
A railway station is an important place of a communication system. It is a place where Passengers get on the train and get down from the train. Every railway station has at least one building. In a railway station, there is a room for the station master, there is a booking room, there are rooms for ticket counters and there are the waiting rooms for the passengers. Passengers are found standing in a long line to buy tickets. Every railway station has a platform. Big stations have more than one platform. A railway station is usually a busy place. When a train leaves the station, it again becomes calm and quiet. Passengers are often seen in a long line to collect tickets. All the passengers seemed to be in a hurry. They were worried lest they should miss the train.
Some passengers take rest in the waiting room. Some passengers loiter here and there. Different types of vendors hawk their goods in the station. Some sell betel-leaf and cigarette, some sell nuts. One can also see some permanent shops in a railway station. It is a dear place for the beggars. They can sleep here at night. But the sight of the station has some changes with the arrival and departure of a train. The hawkers shout the vendors move, the porters walk to and fro and the beggars beg singing the religious chorus. Just outside the station, there are stands for rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, and other vehicles. The railway station holds a police-station inside it. The railway police personnel are there to check the crimes within a certain jurisdiction on the railways. When the trains come in with passengers, the station gets very noisy, people struggle against one another to get in and get down the compartments. Women, children, the old and the sick suffer a lot.
There are two signals-one inner and the other outer. Before the arrival of a train, the pointsman gets them down. The pointsman moves with his red and green flags. As soon as a train comes to the station, passengers rush to get on it while many passengers get down. So, there is often a collision between the two groups of passenger’s incoming and outgoing. However, as soon as the train leaves the station, it becomes less noisy. Thus the railway station is a place of noise and activity. A railway station is a very important and essential place for the people at large.
