Gwalior Junction railway station



Gwalior Junction railway station (station code: GWL) is a main railway station of Gwalior City in the northern part of in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Gwalior Junction is part of the Jhansi Division and falls under the administrative control of North Central Railway Zone of Indian Railways.

History
Gwalior Junction Railway Station came into existence with the formation of the Agra-Gwalior rail section which was completed in 1881. After that Gwalior Station was transferred to the Bhopal–Jhansi section of the Indian Midland Railway whose headquarters was in Jhansi. Later this section was operated by G.I.P. Railways. Maharaja Madho Rao Scindia laid a light narrow gauge rail line in his territory in 1899 between Gwalior-Bhind, Gwalior-Shivpuri, and in 1904 from Gwalior to Sabalgarh and in 1909 from Sabalgarh to Sheopur Kalan, which became known as Gwalior Light Railway. The Gwalior narrow-gauge track was the narrowest in India. The station had also won awards from Indian Railways for clean infrastructure in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1992.

Services
Gwalior Junction lies on the New Delhi–Chennai main line of the Indian Railways which halts more than 160 daily trains. Express trains such as the Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Gatimaan Express, Humsafar Express, Duronto Express, Taj Express, Garib Rath Express as well as Vande Bharat Express which is India's semi-highspeed train, stops at Gwalior Junction.

Narrow-gauge train operation of Gwalior-Sheopur Kalan line closed in 2020 and now this section is under conversion to 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge line.

Redevelopment
The Gwalior Junction railway station has been proposed to be redeveloped at a cost of approximately ₹ 290 crores under the station redevelopment program by the Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Ltd (IRSDC). Entry, exit, and block areas have been proposed to be redeveloped being in contrast with the heritage building in an area of approximately 9840 m2. It is one among the four new railway stations which had been finalized for redevelopment based on the public-private partnership (PPP) model. According to IRSDC, the in-principle approval for inviting the request for quotation (RFQ) for the redevelopment of the railway station based on the PPP model was granted by the Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC) on 20 December 2019. The proposed area of the redevelopment of the station is approximately 230425 m2 with a proposed cost of around 240 crores, and will highlight the unique heritage building.

Connectivity
Gwalior Junction is well-connected to all parts of the country via train like New Delhi, Mumbai, Vijayawada, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Lucknow, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, Jammu, Puri, Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Dehradun, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Gwalior Junction is served by five broad-gauge routes:
 * To Agra–New Delhi
 * To Jhansi–Bhopal
 * To Guna–Ujjain
 * To Birlanagar–Bhind–Etawah
 * To Sabalgarh-Sheopur (Under Broad-gauge conversion)