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Carrying over 30 million passengers a day and employing almost one and half million people, it’s impossible to overstate the economic and cultural significance of rail travel in India. If the railways are India’s pulsating arteries, then the magnificent and historic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai is its beating heart.

As a spectacle, British architect Frederick William Stevens’ stunning and majestic gothic architecture is matched only by the ballet of thousands of engineers, porters, passengers and wallahs pouring on and off countless trains inside.

Constructed in 1887 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, the busiest railway station in India was rededicated to the great Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji in 1996 and is perhaps best known around the world thanks to its being a backdrop in the Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…

(Images: kittel, just.in, samirluther, my hovercraft is full of eels, *****María*****)

About the author

Brett AckroydBrett hopes to one day reach the shores of far-flung Tristan da Cunha, the most remote of all the inhabited archipelagos on Earth…as to what he’ll do when he gets there, he hasn’t a clue. Over the last 10 years, London, New York, Cape Town and Pondicherry have all proudly been referred to as home. Now it’s Copenhagen’s turn, where he lends his travel expertise to momondo.com.

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