It is 7.15am. The public address system at the Airport station of Circular Railway suddenly crackles to life. “The Airport Up train has left the Jessore Road Station and will be at the Airport station in another five minutes,” the announcer says.

But the station is almost dead. There are only two passengers to hear the announcement. One is a food hawker headed for Sealdah to sell his wares. Another is a Dum Dum-based employee of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, waiting to catch the train back home after doing the graveyard shift.

When the train — with nine coaches and seating capacity of over 1,000 — arrives, there is still nobody else at the station apart from these two passengers. The next train will come almost 15 hours later, at 9.50pm. And to think that the government spent Rs 112 crore of taxpayers’ money to set up this 3.2-km link to the main line at Dum Dum Cantonment!

On an average, the Airport station struggles to earn Rs 50 on any given day, 10 times less than what it costs Eastern Railway to keep the 300-metre platform and the rest of the station clean. There are six employees — the station master, two station managers, a person at the ticket window and two porters.

Nothing, it seems, has changed since Metro first reported on the “ghost train” in November 2006. On Sunday, during another recce of the Airport station, not a single seat was occupied.

Station master Pradip Kumar Ghosh blames it on lack of awareness. “Not many passengers are aware of this facility. We expect more and more people to start availing themselves of this service when they come to know about it,” he says.

The employee at the counter is almost nonchalant when he says that revenue has increased to Rs 50 per day.

Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had inaugurated the train service on July 29, 2006, with customary fanfare. It was touted as an important link between the city and the airport, as it is abroad. Almost two years later, traffic at the airport has increased manifold but the Airport station remains where it was.

No effort has been made yet to attract inbound air passengers. Most do not even know that the train service exists. Those who do say it is no good.

“Firstly, why on earth are the train timings so strange? Secondly, the station is more than a five-minute walk from the airport. Nobody is going to walk that long when you have pre-paid taxis just outside the airport. Moreover, one has to climb a steep flight of stairs with luggage to reach the platform. The authorities should have paid attention to these factors before starting the project. The concept was good but the planning was pathetic,” says frequent flier.

So, is Eastern Railway contemplating a change in timings?

“There is no plan to introduce more trains in the near future or change the timings,” says an official.