Bhopal Junction railway station (station code: BPL) is a major

railway junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge), provided by ''points'' ( ...

of India and main railway station of

Bhopal Bhopal (; ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes'' due to its various natural and artificial lakes. It i ...

, the capital of the central Indian state of

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

. This station also serves as a connecting point for various pilgrims from Asia to visit the Stupa of

Sanchi Sanchi is a Buddhist complex, famous for its Great Stupa, on a hilltop at Sanchi Town in Raisen District of the State of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located, about 23 kilometres from Raisen town, district headquarter and north-east of Bh ...

, an important Buddhist stupa, which is about from this station.

Infrastructure

The station is located at about north of the city centre and from . The station has 6 platforms in addition to enough waiting halls, refreshment centre, passenger ticket counter and ticket vending machines, vehicle parking, communication facility, sanitary facility and dedicated Government Railway Police force to ensure security.

History

The station was constructed in year 1910. The second station for the city ( Bhopal Habibganj) was constructed in year 1975 and its inauguration was done by Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. In 1984, the station was affected in

Bhopal disaster The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Considered the world's ...

, when toxic gas fumes from a nearby chemical plant leaked. In the station, staff, passengers, people fleeing the gases and other persons present died and were injured from inhaling these gases. Station staff still tried to alarm nearby stations not to send trains towards Bhopal. The station master made a stationary train, the

Gorakhpur Gorakhpur is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, along the banks of the Rapti river in the Purvanchal region. It is situated 272 kilometers east of the state capital Lucknow. It is the administrative headquarters of Gorakhpur dis ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

Express, leave immediately ahead of departure time to save the people onboard. The main railway station as well as are selected along with 47 other railway stations to emerge as ''The World Class Railway Station''. The Bhopal Junction and Bhopal Habibganj have already received ''ISO 9001:2000 Certificate''.

Services

Bhopal Junction railway station is located on the main

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

–

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

route which halts more than 200 daily trains, with a total of more than 380 trains within a week. To the north of the Bhopal Junction lies , to the south lies . There is one track which connects Bhopal to the west with , Sehore, and . Also to some portion of , Sehore and .

Development

The Bhopal railway station has become the India's first railway station to have a sanitary napkin vending machine named as ‘Happy Nari’. The machine dispenses two sanitary napkins at the cost of ₹5 only and accepts ₹5 coins. The sanitary pads vending machine has been installed at platform No.1 by the Railway Women Welfare Association of Bhopal. The machine has the capacity of holding 75 sanitary pads. A specially trained female staff will refill the machine.

References

External links