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Sion is a railway station on the Central line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway network, located in the Mumbai neighborhood of Sion.
Its location near the Mithi River means that the railway between Sion and Kurla, directly to the north,[2] has flooded frequently during the Indian monsoon. However, in 2019, the Central Railway conducted work to raise the trackbed by four to six inches to prevent future flooding. Previously, 30 mm of rain in 24 hours flooded the track, but now there will be no disruption of services with 100 mm of rain per day.[3]
Despite this work, the tracks near this station still experienced water-logging and flooding during the 2019 floods in Mumbai.[4]
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Sion can be considered the actual place of inauguration of the GIP Railway, since it was here that the "first sod for the railway was turned" by the Chief Secretary of the then Bombay Government, John P. Willoughby. Sion was one of the stations for the First Passenger Train of India (the second stop), that ran on 16th April 1853, where its engines were 'watered' and its wheels greased.[5]
The original Sion station was not situated at its present site, but was somewhere close to Kurla. While the name of the station was initially Sion, in 1855, it was therefore renamed to Kurla. (in 1895, this station was shifted to its present site, and is still called the Kurla Station)[6] There was no railway station between this old station and Dadar, which proved to be of great inconvenience to the passengers. Therefore, in 1872, 107 local inhabitants from Sion and nearby villages sent a petition to the Railway Company (GIPR) to request a station be built. Considering the petitions and the benefits it offered, the GIPR eventually built an official station, the Sion Station.[7] This new station was opened on 3rd November 1873.[8]
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Medical officers watching the arrival of a train at Sion railway station, during the Plague epidemic,1897
Outside Sion Station
Sion Station Board
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