Grand Chord

Grand Chord- also known as The Life line of India is a section of the Indian Railways and is one of the two parts of the main Delhi-Howrah route. It acts as a link between Sitarampur, (West Bengal) and Mughal Sarai, Uttar Pradesh, and covers a stretch of 450 km. It is a fully electrified, triple line section from Mughalsarai to Dehri-on-sone and double line section from Dehri-on-sone to Asansol. The Grand chord section is the lifeline of the country 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 km.

The railways first came to eastern India in 1854, and the Calcutta–Delhi railway link, with a distance of more than 1636 km, 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. With the opening of the Grand Chord route, the distance between Calcutta and Delhi was reduced by 80 km. The cost of construction was around Rs. 41,500,000.

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.