Grand Chord

 railway  Add category

 Upload a photo

Grand Chord
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)
Grand Chord section of the Indian Railways is one of the two part of main Delhi-Howrah route is a link between Asansol, (West Bengal) and Mughal Sarai (near Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh), and covers a stretch of 450 km.[1] It is a fully electrified, triple line section from Mughalsarai to Dehri-on-sone and double line section from Dehri-on-sone to Asansol. 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 section of the country. In the down direction, the traffic consists of mostly food grains, fertilizers and empty wagons for coal loading in 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 and passes through Dhanbad, Gomoh, Parasnath, Hazaribagh Road, Koderma, Gaya, Aurangabad, Dehri on sone, Sasaram and several other places.
The railways first came to eastern India in 1854, and the Calcutta–Delhi railway link, 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.[1] 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. [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.
[edit]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 (1270 Km) Via Grand Chord, Khurja to Dadri on NCR Double Line electrified corridor (46 Km) and Single electrified line from Khurja to Ludhiana (412 Km) on Northern Railway. The total length works out to 1279 Km. 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, lime stone 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 2005-06 to 116 million tonnes in 2021-22.
[edit]Trains on the route

At one time in the 70's it was said that a goods train passes by every 20 minutes on the Grand Chord line. Now it is reduced between 5 minute make it one of the busiest route in India. More than 50 mail/express trains use this shorter route apart from 2 dozens of Passengers Trains.
Some Important Trains are-
The Royal Maharaja Express (Most Luxurious train in India)
New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani express
New Delhi-Sealdah Rajdhani express
New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani express (Via. Bokaro)
New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani express (Via. Adra)
New Delhi-Ranchi Rajdhani express (Via. Bokaro)
New Delhi-Ranchi Rajdhani express (Via. Daltongunj)
Ranchi-Howrah Shatabdi Express (Via. Bokaro)
New Delhi-Howrah Duranto express
New Delhi-Bhubneswar Duranto express
New Delhi-Ranchi Garib Rath
New Delhi-Howrah Yuva Express
West Bengal Sampark Kranti express
Orissa Sampark Kranti express
Jharkhand Sampark Kranti express
Howrah-Jodhpur exp
Ajmer-Sealdah Exp
Howrah-Amritsar Exp
Kalka Mail
Poorva Exp
Howrah-Gandhidham Exp
Howrah-Bikaner Exp
Purusottam Exp
Parasnath Exp
Chambal Exp
New Delhi-Howrah Exp
Shipra Exp
Jharkhand Exp (Via. Bokaro)
Mahabodhi Exp
Gaya-Nagpur Dikshabhumi Exp
Gaya-Chennai Exp
Jammu tawi Exp
Howrah-Bhopal Exp
Dehradoon-Howrah Exp
Neelanchal Exp (Via. Bokaro)
Neelanchal Exp (Via. Adra)
Patna-Hatia Exp
Superfast Exp
Sarnath Exp
Shalimar-Gorakhpur Exp
Garba Exp
Pratap Exp
Black Diamond Exp
Coalfield Exp
Patna-Ranchi Jansatabdi Exp
Jaliawala Exp
Mumbai Mail
Lokmanya Tilak Exp
Jaipur-Howrah Exp
Ganga-Damodar Exp
Ganga-Sutlej Exp
Palamu Exp
Garib Nawaj Exp
Howrah-Ranchi Intercity Exp
Patna-Dhanbad Intercity Exp
Dhanbad-Gaya Intercity Exp
Dehri-Patna Intercity Exp
Ranchi-Howrah Exp (New)
Ranchi-Varanasi Intercity Exp
Ranchi-Alipurdar Exp
Shaktipunj Exp
Howrah-Jabalpur Exp
Howrah - Amritsar Express