Grand Chord

Grand Chord
Grand Chord
	Dhanbad Junction, An Important Railway Station On Grand Chord Line
Overview
Status	Operational
Owner	Indian Railways
Locale	West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh
Termini	Sitarampur; Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction;
Service
Operator(s)	Eastern Railway, East Central Railway
History
Opened	1900
Technical
Line length	450.7 km (280 mi)
Number of tracks	2/3
Track gauge	5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad gauge
Electrification	Electrified
Operating speed	up to 160 km/h (99 mph)
Route map
Route map
v; t; e; Grand chord
	Legend
	to Mughalsarai–Kanpur section
	of Howrah–Delhi main line
	and Howrah–Gaya–Delhi line
	to Sitarampur
	via Howrah–Delhi main line
	Uttar Pradesh
	Bihar
	Nehru Setu bridge
	across Son River
	Bihar
	Jharkhand
	Jharkhand
	West Bengal
	to Mughalsarai
	via Howrah–Delhi main line

Grand Chord is part of the Howrah–Gaya–Delhi line and Howrah–Prayagraj–Mumbai line. It acts as a link between Sitarampur, (Asansol) (West Bengal) and Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction (Uttar Pradesh), previously known as Mughalsarai Junction, and covers a stretch of 450.7 km (280.1 mi).^[1] The Coal India Corridor line that branches off from Dhanbad Junction and rejoins the Grand Chord at Son Nagar Junction is another major coal loading hub. It is a fully electrified, quadruple line section from Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay to Son Nagar and double line section from Son Nagar to Sitarampur. There are plans to triple the lines from Son Nagar to Dhanbad to accommodate the increasing traffic. . The entire line lies under the jurisdiction of three divisions, Mughalsarai railway division, Dhanbad railway division and Asansol railway division. The Grand chord section is the lifeline of the country, 2nd busiest railway section of India after Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh to Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction, Uttar Pradesh (previously known as Mughalsarai Junction) Main Line section, on which coal, steel and other important goods are moved from Eastern section to Western and Northern sections of the country. In the down direction, the traffic consists of mostly food grains, fertilizers and empty wagons for coal loading in the Jharkhand and West Bengal coal fields. Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction is a transit division and the main objective is to maintain mobility of high density traffic. The present capacity of the Grand Chord is being optimally utilized. Traversing through Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand as well as parts of the fertile Gangetic plains of Bihar, the Grand Chord covers a stretch of 450.7 km (280.1 mi). The Grand Chord is renowned for its remarkable controlling of passenger traffic, despite being burdened with freight traffic.

The railways first came to eastern India in 1854, and the Calcutta–Delhi railway link, with a distance of more than 1,642 km (1,020 mi), became operational by 1866. With the increase in traffic it became necessary to construct an alternative route.

With this in view, the Grand Chord section was planned. The Grand Chord section was opened in December 1906 by Lord Minto, then Viceroy and Governor-General of India with a function at Gujahandi.^[1] With the opening of the Grand Chord route, the distance between Calcutta and Delhi was reduced by 192 km (119 mi). The cost of construction was around ₹415 lakh (equivalent to ₹14 billion or US$160 million in 2023).^[2]

The Grand Chord section is critically important even today, handling major passenger trains on the Howrah–Delhi route, particularly all the Rajdhani Expresses from Howrah, Bhubaneswar and Ranchi and the entire freight traffic, particularly coal, handled by the Dhanbad division of East Central Railway.

Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor

The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (Eastern DFC) encompasses a double-line electrified traction corridor from Haldia on the Eastern Railway to Khurja on the North Central Railway (1,270 km or 790 mi) via Grand Chord, Khurja to Dadri on NCR double-line electrified corridor (46 km or 29 mi) and Single electrified line from Khurja to Ludhiana (412 km or 256 mi) on Northern Railway. The total length works out to 1,379 km (857 mi). So in the Grand Chord section its total 4 parallel track will be run to ease traffic movement on this busy route.

The EDFC will traverse 6 states and is projected to cater to a number of traffic streams – coal for the power plants in the northern region of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and parts of Rajasthan from the Eastern coal fields, finished steel, food grains, cement, fertilizers, limestone from Rajasthan to steel plants in the east and general goods. The total traffic in UP direction is projected to go up from 38 million tonnes in FY2005-06 to 116 million tonnes in FY2021–22.

Trains on the route

In c. 1970, it was said that a goods train passes by every 20 minutes on the Grand Chord line. Now, the frequency has become around 5 minutes making it one of the busiest routes in India. More than 50 mail and express trains use this shorter route apart from 2 dozens of passenger trains.

Some important trains on the route

References

^ ^a ^b "The Grand 'old' Chord". The Hindu. 4 December 2006.
^ "Grand rerun of Raj rail route - Railways enact Lord Minto's flag-off at Gujhandi to celebrate 100 years of Dhanbad-Gaya chord line". The Telegraph. Kolkata. 7 December 2006. Archived from the original on 9 January 2011.

[Hindu0612-1] "The Grand 'old' Chord". The Hindu. 4 December 2006.

[2] "Grand rerun of Raj rail route - Railways enact Lord Minto's flag-off at Gujhandi to celebrate 100 years of Dhanbad-Gaya chord line". The Telegraph. Kolkata. 7 December 2006. Archived from the original on 9 January 2011.

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