Grand Chord

Grand Chord is part of the Howrah-Gaya-Delhi line and Howrah-Jabalpur-Mumbai line. It acts as a link between Sitarampur, (West Bengal) and Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction, Uttar Pradesh, and covers a stretch of 450.7 km (280.1 mi).[1] It is a fully electrified, triple line section from Mughalsarai to Gaya and double line section from Gaya to Asansol. 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 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 Bihar and West Bengal coal fields. Mughalsarai 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 Chhota 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).

Grand Chord
Overview
StatusOperational
LocaleWest Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh
TerminiSitarampur
DDU
Operation
Opened1900
OwnerIndian Railway
Operator(s)Eastern Railway, East Central Railway
Technical
Line length450.7 km (280 mi)
Number of tracks2/3
Track gauge1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge
ElectrificationElectrified
Operating speedup to 160 km/h (99 mph)
Route map
 Gaya–Mughalsarai section 
 
 
to Mughalsarai–Kanpur section
Mughalsarai Junction
Chandauli Majhwar
Bhabua Road
 Sasaram
 Dehri-on-Sone
Nehru Setu bridge
across Son River
 Son Nagar
to Barkakana
 Anugrah Narayan Road
 Gaya Junction
 Asansol–Gaya section 
Gaya Junction
Falgu River
Gujhandi
 Koderma Junction
to Giridih
Hazaribagh Road
 Parasnath
 NSC Bose Gomoh
to Adra
Dhanbad
Sitarampur

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 (US$580,000).[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 Freight Corridor

The Eastern Corridor 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 Eastern Corridor 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 U.P., Delhi, Harayana, 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 passengers trains.

Some important trains on the route

References
  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.
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