Howrah: The old boys of IIEST, Shibpur, will hit the nostalgia street and run along the route of bus no. 55- the only bus between Shibpur and Esplanade till late 1999 - on Christmas Eve.

The fifth edition of Route 55, a 10km walk/run named after the bus route, will start from the old Metro cinema at Esplanade and cover Netaji Subhas Road, Howrah bridge, Foreshore Road and Avani Riverside mall before culminating at the gate of the institute on College Road in Shibpur, Howrah.

"We will run along the route the bus follows now. In our days, the bus would stop on the road outside Howrah station after descending from Howrah bridge. From there, it would travel through the congested GT Road to the campus," said Anindya Mukherjee who passed out with mechanical engineering from the Shibpur campus in 1997 and is now based in Switzerland. As a student, he travelled from Uttarpara to Howrah station by local train and then took the route 55 bus to the college.

The bus on route 55 starts at Esplanade and terminates at Botanic Garden, Shibpur. More buses between Esplanade and Shibpur started plying through the second Hooghly bridge from 2000.

The idea of the run was born in 2013. "If 12C was the sole bus for IIM-C students travelling to Joka from Esplanade for many years, 55 held the same distinction for a BE College student. Students at IIM-C have a band named Baro-C (12C) to celebrate the bond. We thought of the run to celebrate our attachment with the bus route," said Arindam Dastidar, a 1997 passout who is now with Cognizant. A boarder, he would take the route 55 bus from Howrah station when he went home to Durgapur.

The proceeds from the run go to Sramajibi Hospital, Belur. This year, the money would also be used to provide free health care to drivers, conductors and helpers of buses plying on route 55.