The East Indian Railway, which had established the Howrah-Delhi main line via Allahabad, opened the Allahabad-Jabalpur branch line in June 1867. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway connection reached Jabalpur from Itarsi on 7 March 1870, linking up with the EIR track there from Allahabad, and establishing connectivity between Mumbai and Kolkata. Jabalpur railway division is one of the three railway divisions under West Central Railway zone of Indian Railways. This railway division was formed on 1 April 1952 and its headquarters are located at Jabalpur in the state of Madhya Pradesh of India. Bhopal railway division and Kota railway division are the other two railway divisions under WCR Zone headquartered at Jabalpur.. The station is sometimes called the Jabalpur main station. Jabalpur serves as the headquarters of the West Central Railway zone and is one of the busiest railway stations in Madhya Pradesh. Jabalpur being the third largest city of Madhya Pradesh and with no suburban railway system caused the British to build 10 different railway stations across the city to manage the railway traffic and passengers across the city. The Jabalpur station is one of the major stations in the Howrah-Allahabad-Mumbai line and construction of Jabalpur-Nagpur narrow gauge conversion to broad gauge is completed till nainpur and work is in progress in nainpur and Samnapur section which is expected to be completed till September 30, 2019.
Structure and Location
The railway station of Jabalpur is located on broad gauge line and comes under "A" category station and is in top100 booking stations. It consists of 6 broad gauge platforms. The station is also enhanced with escalators and lifts on the platform for better convenience. The station is all set to get modified with amenities like malls and hotels in station premise.
The Itarsi-Jabalpur-Allahabad, 603 km long route, was approved for electrification in the Rail Budget of 2011. Itarsi-Jabalpur-Katni route has been electrified. Most of the trains in this section are running on electric traction. Similarly, Allahabad-Satna route is also electrified but due to technical constraints, frequency of electric locomotives is very less in this section. The section of Satna-Rewa and Satna-Katni is still under electrification. It is expected to complete by year 2020.