Like visiting Howrah station? Flaunt your fondness for it on Facebook by posting a selfie against the backdrop of the 161-year-old redbrick structure. Have a gripe or a grievance against it? Turn Howrah into a hashtag on Twitter.

Metro gives you the lowdown on Howrah station's social media debut.

Why has Howrah jumped onto the social media bandwagon?

The idea came from the Indian Railways, which had issued a circular in April asking all its divisions to open Facebook and Twitter accounts. The objective was to give passengers a voice apart from the 24x7 helpline 138 that allows anyone to lodge a complaint while travelling by train. The official Facebook page of Eastern Railway's Howrah division - www.facebook.com/howrahdivn - is meant to be a platform for grievance redress along with the Twitter account @drmhowrah. The I love Howrah Junction page is exclusively for sharing and social networking among passengers. The page had 733 "likes" until Friday evening.

What can passengers post or tweet?

"If you are on a running train and find that there is no water in your coach or the toilets are unclean or the catering service is bad, you can call 138 or post a complaint at www.facebook.com/howrahdivn. You can also go to Twitter and air your grievance @drmhowrah. The helpline and the Facebook and Twitter accounts will be handled by separate control rooms that will route your complaints to the relevant departments for remedial action," said R. Badri Narayan, the divisional railway manager (DRM) of Howrah.

How has been the response so far?

The official Facebook page had just two posts till Friday. On Twitter, the posts include a video of a local train running at 100kmph and a picture of railway workers in orange suits engaged in track maintenance. There is another a picture of someone trespassing on the tracks.

On July 28, the DRM tweeted: "It's raining heavily between Ambika Kalna and Katwa and between Nalikul and Arambagh stations."

The next day, another update: "There is a problem between Lakhipur and Belarhat on the Bandel-Katwa section due to heavy rains. Officers from division rushing to assess."

What's needed are more passenger tweets. The Twitter account had 16 followers and eight tweets until Friday.

What about the fun element of social media?

That's taken care of by www.facebook.com/I Love Howrah Junction. This page was inaugurated on Bengali New Year and has since seen a fair bit of activity, including posts, comments and videos of flash mobs at the station. "We have a Railway Week every year from April 13-17, during which we decided to build a community of Howrah station admirers," said Badri Narayan.

A highlight of the initiative is honouring the millionth suburban passenger in a given financial year. "The One Millionth Suburban Passenger of Howrah Junction - Sri Somnath Banerjee of Serampore, Hooghly: Honoured during the Railway Week in April.... Sri Banerjee was treated like he is one in a million!," says a post on the page.