Lucknow, Sept. 25 -- The redevelopment of Lucknow's Charbagh railway station under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme may give the terminal a major facelift, but a separate and more critical capacity-enhancement project remains on the drawing board. The proposed addition of platforms 10 and 11, along with comprehensive yard remodelling, is estimated to cost around Rs.435 crore and does not form part of the ongoing station redevelopment. The platform expansion proposal was made in mid-2025 and the work is under sanction, but there is no firm timeline yet for its execution. Railway officials said the project is considerably more complex than adding two platforms as it involves restructuring the entire yard, including tracks, overhead electrical infrastructure and signalling systems. Senior divisional commercial manager Samarth Gupta acknowledged that the existing yard layout will need to be upgraded to handle a projected increase in passenger and goods train operations. "From the perspective of passenger convenience, the number of passenger and goods trains will have to increase in the coming years. But the existing yard layouts are not adequate to handle that. We will remodel it soon," Gupta said. The need for the intervention stems from a longstanding bottleneck in the Charbagh yard. Four railway lines from the Barabanki and Sultanpur sides and four from the Kanpur and Moradabad sides converge into two lines near the station, creating a bottleneck that officials said has existed for more than three decades. The section was originally a single-line arrangement. A senior railway official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Northern Railway side of Charbagh currently handles around 350 train arrivals and departures in 24 hours (including goods train) which is beyond the station's practical handling capacity. The official said the congestion can result in trains reaching the outskirts of Lucknow ahead of scheduled platform arrival but having to wait there until a platform becomes available. However, he said waiting outside the station cannot be attributed to a single factor. Platform capacity and the configuration of the yard also play a role, he said, with some platforms unable to accommodate certain longer trains. "The yard has been modelled in such a way that several operations cannot be carried out until it is changed. These include changing platforms and switching train tracks, besides several other technical aspects. As a result, a train may have to wait until the required platform becomes vacant," Gupta said. The development comes as Charbagh undergoes its separate Amrit Bharat redevelopment, focused on modernising passenger facilities and circulation. The proposed platform expansion and yard restructuring, however, is being treated as an independent project, meaning the station's passenger-facing makeover and its long-term operational capacity are being addressed through two separate projects....