Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus

Top choice in Mumbai (Bombay)


Imposing, exuberant and overflowing with people, this monumental train station is the city’s most extravagant Gothic building and an aphorism of colonial-era India. It’s a meringue of Victorian, Hindu and Islamic styles whipped into an imposing Dalí-esque structure of buttresses, domes, turrets, spires and stained glass. It's also known as CSMT.

Some of the architectural detail is incredible, with dog-faced gargoyles adorning the magnificent central tower and peacock-filled windows above the central courtyard. Designed by Frederick Stevens, it was completed in 1887, 34 years after the first train in India left this site.

Despite being renamed again in 2017, after being changed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in 1998, it’s still better known locally as VT.


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