Bhubaneswar railway station desperately needs additional platforms
Bhubaneswar- Cuttack- Puri, ECOR, Railways, World-class stations January 28th. 2012, 1:38pmUpdate: Thanks very much Bikash Dash for the pointer to http://wiki.iricen.gov.in/
The Bhubaneswar railway station currently has only FOUR platforms. That is too little for the volume of trains and passengers it caters to and will cater to in the future. Besides being on the main Howrah-Chennai line and the ECOR headquarter, with the Bhubaneswar metro area growing and many new lines in the anvil (Khurda-Balangir, possible new line to Astarang to serve the proposed port there, Khurda Rd To Rajahthagarh completing a circuit) there will soon be need for many local train circuits with more frequent trains.
All this means that even if a new station near Barang (15-16 kms from Bhubaneswar) is constructed with enough platforms, because of the central location of the Bhubaneswar station, the later needs to be expanded with additional platforms.
But there is no horizontal available land in parallel to the exisiting platforms.
I envision two possible solutions:
(i) Going vertical and creating another layer of platforms either under or above the existing platforms. But that would add may be another 4 platforms.
(ii) Another possibility is to go under and create a terminus under the area marked in blue in the pictures below. All those land is owned by the Odisha government. So land acquisition is not a problem.
As can be seen from the pictures above one can add 8+ more platforms perpendicular to the existing 4 platforms. All this can be done in a PPP mode with making good use of shopping, pedestrian plaza and surface transport center all in the ground level and higher and stretching all the way up to the Indira Gandhi park and the Assembly Hall, Secretariat, Rabindra Mandap etc.
The new platforms could mostly be used for trains origniating and terminating at Bhubaneswar; thus not hampering the stopping times of thorough trains which would need an engine direction change if they go to the new platforms.
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January 29th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Your 1st solution is good, but nearly impossible to implement without stopping the functioning of the main line for quite some time. Thus it becomes unfeasible.
Your 2nd solution is tecnically impossible, as trains cannot turn in as small a space as you have shown. Not to mention the area takes up prime and very important real estate of the town. It takes up the most important road of the state capital, ie MG Road in front of the assembly, where a couple of days back the Republic day Parade was held.
The solution for the city station is to dismantle the coaching yard next to the station and the goods unloading yard next to it. Removing these from their present locations will generate a lot of space which is already owned by the railways. Relocation of the terminal building, a bit further back from its present location will also generate more space. All this should generate 4-6 more platforms Kharagpur style, 2 platforms in line with each other.
The coaching yard can be shifted to the area around Mancheswar station, where railway already owns quite a bit of land. Suitable number and type of shunting engines may be brought in and also dedicated shunting lines may be built between Bhubaneswar station and Mancheswar station to facilitate shunting operations.
Similarly the goods yard can be suitable relocated, if needed some land may be allocated by the state govt for doing so.
But even these solutions will need a few years to implement, which in my view is too long. Few immediate steps that need to be taken that will help are:
1. Building of one more wide FOB at the station. Due to the sudden change in platforms on which trains are to arrive, people face very very heavy rush on the two FOBs that are present.
2. Develop and encourage the use of the Platform No.4 as a major point of entry and exit. Most people still prefer to come to platform no. 1. Thus everybody rushes to and from Platform no. 1
January 29th, 2012 at 10:53 pm
My thought is to keep the major road connecting Master Canteen with Assembly there. I think the mostly one story government quarters in various units (especially units 2 and 3 that are relevant here) is a severe under use of the precious real estate. So one can redo that part, and have as much residential sqft (as there is today) and a lot more aesthetically built commercial as well as public space.
January 29th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Note that I am saying all the platforms in the perpendicular area to be underground; so lot more underground space (uner the current station as well as under the current coaching yard that you mention) will be used for turning.
January 29th, 2012 at 11:31 pm
The future expansion plan of Bhubaneswar Railway Station can be found here.
January 29th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
@S Pani: In the map http://wikimapia.org/#lat=20.2674308&lon=85.847919&z=16&l=0&m=b the Railway yard is about 1 km away from the current station. Are you referring to that or something else.
January 30th, 2012 at 12:14 am
Thank you very much Bikash for the link. The information in that page completely changes things. Based on that I think they should go for expanding the existing BBS station right way and start acquiring the land and slowly building up the new Barang station for future development. In twenty years, when there will be need for frequent trains on the various suburban lines, Bhubaneswar would need the space in that station.