The Central Railway is considering upgrading Godhni station to make it a suburban station, allowing trains destined for the northern areas of the country to pass via Nagpur on their way to Howrah and Bilaspur. The station is being considered for development into a passenger yard in order to relieve congestion at Nagpur Railway Station, which is landlocked.
Despite the fact that the planning began many years ago at Nagpur Division, the initiative has come from the neighbouring South East Central Railway. Maninder Uppal, Divisional Railway Manager, SECR, Nagpur Division, requested the General Manager of Central Railway to proceed with the development of Godhni as a passenger station.
He highlighted that trains running from Eastern part of country, via SECR route, would be able to by-pass
Nagpur and avoid reversal of engines that is a time consuming process due to change in direction. Also due to congestion at Nagpur Yard trains coming from SECR’s Nagpur Zone often are held up on outer signal. Nearly three pairs of trains, like Chhattisgarh
Express, Bilaspur-New Delhi Express and Gondwana
Express can skip Nagpur while coming from SECR jurisdiction while moving towards New Delhi and vice-versa.
The savings of times as per rough calculation could be of to be upgraded to enable movement of passenger trains. The double line Chord section between Nagpur-Godhni currently is fit for running of trains at 30 km/hr that is good enough for freight trains. However since long distance passenger trains are moving with speed the section would need strengthening of tracks, changing of sleepers, provision of additional safety features, putting in place corss-overs to enable lateral movement in Godhni yard etc. Once the track on Chord section is upgraded.passenger train can move at speed of 50 km/hr.
In this light, DRM Uppal pushed for upgradation of
Godhni that already caters to movement of goods trains..General Manager, CR, Anil Lahoti, instructed Engineering Branch, too examine the issue
and they have prepared a draft plan for development of passenger yard at Godhni.
Confirming the development, Sr. Divisional Commercial Manager (Sr. DCM), Central Railway, Nagpur Division, Krishnath Patil, said Engineering Branch is targeting completion of all facilities required for passenger station within the financial year.
As per details, first two additional platforms are planned to be developed at Godhni that has adequate space for expansion. Right now only one platform exists at the station and now with addition of two platforms the foot over bridge (FoB) would also need expansion.
The demand for development of Godhni as satellite station was made long back and matter was also raised in meeting of Divisional Railway Users Consultative Committee.
Commuters from Northern and far Western parts of city stands to benefit, in case they are keen to board trains bound for Delhi or to any Eastern part of city.
Already, Central Railway has taken-up development of Ajni as satellite terminus station.
This has proved beneficial for commuter as well as Railways. From operation point of view the Ajni-Nagpur section is choked and hence in future more number of trains are likely to be shifted to Ajni to decongest Nagpur station.
