Badarpur Junction railway station is a railway junction in the town of Badarpur in the Karimganj district of Assam, India. It is one of the principal junctions of the Barak Valley region and lies on the Lumding–Badarpur–Silchar route operated by the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) zone of Indian Railways. The station serves as an interchange for trains heading towards Silchar, Agartala, Guwahati and Karimganj.
| Name | Badarpur Junction railway station |
|---|---|
| Station code | BPB |
| Location | Badarpur, Karimganj district, Assam |
| Country | India |
| Operator | Indian Railways |
| Zone | Northeast Frontier Railway |
| Division | Lumding railway division |
| Type | Junction station |
Badarpur is situated on the southern bank of the Barak River and historically developed as a railway town because of its strategic position at the meeting point of routes connecting the Barak Valley with the rest of Northeast India. The junction handles lines diverging towards Silchar in the east, Karimganj and the Agartala route in the south, and Lumding Junction in the north-west via the hill section through Dima Hasao.
The line through Badarpur originated in the metre gauge era as part of the Assam Bengal Railway network laid in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to connect the tea-growing districts of the Surma and Barak valleys with the port of Chittagong. After Partition in 1947, the route lost its outlet to the sea and the section through the North Cachar Hills became the principal land connection for the Barak Valley with the rest of India.
Following the formation of the Northeast Frontier Railway in 1958, Badarpur came under its jurisdiction. The station functioned as a major metre gauge junction for several decades. As part of Indian Railways' national gauge conversion programme (Project Unigauge), the lines passing through Badarpur were converted from metre gauge to broad gauge. The Lumding–Silchar gauge conversion via Badarpur was commissioned for broad gauge traffic in the 2010s, after which broad gauge express services to and from Silchar began operating through the junction.
Badarpur Junction has multiple platforms and serves as a crew-changing and operational point for trains traversing the hill section. The station handles passenger, express and freight traffic, and acts as a junction where trains for Silchar are detached or attached for the Karimganj–Agartala direction. Notable trains calling at the station include long-distance services connecting Silchar with Guwahati, Kolkata, Delhi and other major cities.
As a junction, Badarpur is critical to the rail connectivity of southern Assam, Tripura and Mizoram. The opening of the broad gauge line to Agartala and the further extension towards Sabroom have enhanced the station's role in linking the southern parts of the Northeast with the national broad gauge network. It also remains an important point for the movement of essential commodities into the Barak Valley.