Railway shed from Gaekwadi era to make way for bullet train station in Vadodara

VADODARA: Days of this heritage structure that once acted as a symbol of royalty during the Gaekwadi era are numbered.
The historic railway shed which used to house living, dining and bedroom bogies of a train which the erstwhile ruler of Baroda state Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III used to travel to Bombay will be soon demolished to pave way for the new station for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train.
Sources in the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) which is implementing the bullet train project confirmed that the structure will be razed. In fact, platform number seven and residential and commercial establishments near the Pandya bridge have already been demolished for the project.
The railway shed has been covered with a long green shade net indicating that the building will be soon brought down. “The said railway shed is in the footprints of proposed Vadodara HSR station. The structure is in dilapidated condition and also unsafe due to proximity to the running railway and road traffic.

Presently, NHSRCL has submitted the application for its possession and approval is in process with the competent authorities,” NHSRCL spokesperson Sushma Gaur told TOI.
Ironically, plans to provide a facelift to the dilapidated structure were prepared twice. In 2009, Barodians were told that the historic railway shed will be turned into a city heritage museum which would be ready by 2010.
The then district administration led by district collector Vijay Nehra, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) and city-based Heritage Trust had drawn out a draft MoU which envisaged that using Rs 1 crore from MP’s funds and another Rs 1 crore from the district collectorate, the dilapidated building will be restored, new extension will be done along with plush interiors to convert it into museum.
The plan was to construct the city museum in such a way that it houses five galleries along with a ramp that divides the building in two parts with three galleries on the ground level and two at the upper level. But the proposal made no headway till 2015 when the then district collector Avantika Singh tried to revive the project by roping in corporate donors but all in vein.
“In fact, Vadodara Heritage Society was constituted by former collector Avantika Singh. It included all the stakeholders in heritage management and conservation as also the major custodians of the built heritage of the city including the railways, the VMC among others. Unfortunately, that file is buried somewhere between the Kothi Kacheri and Khanderao market,” said Sameer Khera, president of Heritage Trust.