The Howrah-Bardhaman Chord is a broad-gauge railway line connecting Howrah

Howrah station

Howrah Station is one of the four intercity train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the others are Sealdah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata railway station in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the West bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the magnificent Howrah Bridge which...

 and Bardhaman

Bardhaman

'Bardhaman or Burdwan , is a city of West Bengal state in eastern India. It is the headquarters of Bardhaman District....

. The 95 kilometres (59 mi) railway line operates in Howrah

Howrah District

Howrah district is a district of the West Bengal state in eastern India. It has thousands of years of rich heritage in the form of the great Bengali kingdom of Bhurshut. The district is named after its headquarters, the city of Howrah.-Geography:...

, Hooghly

Hooghly District

Hooghly district is one of the districts of the state of West Bengal in India. It can alternatively be spelt Hoogli or Hugli. The district is named after the Hooghly River.The headquarters of the district are at Chinsura...

 and Bardhaman

Bardhaman District

'Bardhaman district is a district in West Bengal. The headquarter of the district is Bardhaman, though it houses other important industrial towns like Durgapur and Asansol...

 districts in the India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n state

States and territories of India

India is a federal union of states comprising twenty-eight states and seven union territories. The states and territories are further subdivided into districts and so on.-List of states and territories:...

 of West Bengal

West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

. It is part of the Howrah-Delhi line and the Kolkata Suburban Railway

Kolkata Suburban Railway

The Kolkata Suburban Railway is the rail system for the suburbs surrounding the city of Kolkata . Railways such as this are important and heavily-used infrastructure in India....

 system.

History

The Howrah-Bardhaman Chord, a shorter link to Bardhaman from Howrah than the Howrah-Bardhaman Main Line

Howrah-Bardhaman Main Line

The Howrah-Bardhaman Main Line is a broad-gauge railway line connecting Howrah and Bardhaman. The railway line operates in Howrah, Hooghly and Bardhaman districts in the Indian state of West Bengal...

, was constructed in 1917.

In 1932, the Calcutta Chord Line was built over the Willingdon Bridge

Vivekananda Setu

Vivekananda Setu is a bridge over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. It links the city of Howrah, at Bally, to its twin city of Kolkata, at Dakshineswar. Built in December 1932, it is a multispan steel bridge and was built to provide road cum rail link between the Calcutta Port and its...

 joining Dum Dum

Dum Dum

Dum Dum is a city and a municipality in North 24 Parganas district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is a neighbourhood in North-west Kolkata and the location of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, formerly Dum Dum Airport.Dum Dum is a well known place in greater Kolkata...

 with Dankuni

Dankuni

Dankuni is a fast-growing industrial township near Kolkata, India. The town is part of the Hooghly District, in the state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority....

.

Dhaniakhali station on the Howrah-Bardhaman chord line was added in December 2003.

Overview

India’s first air-conditioned double-decker train, running between Howrah and Dhanbad was introduced in 2011. The train will run at a permissible speed of 110 kms per hour on the Howrah- Bardhaman chord line.

Earlier, nine rake EMU coaches were used in local trains but twelve coach EMU trains have been introduced in the chord line in 2011, for which the platforms have been extended.

The 117 kilometres (72.7 mi) long Bankura Damodar Railway will connect to the Howrah-Bardhaman Chord near Masagram, once the bridge on the Damodar River

Damodar River

Damodar River originates near Chandwa village, Palamau district, on the Chota Nagpur Plateau in the Jharkhand state in eastern India, and flows eastward for about 592 km through the states of Jharkhand and West Bengal to the estaury of the River Hooghly...

is ready. The 231 kilometres (143.5 mi) distance for Bankura-Howrah travelling via Kharagpur will be reduced to about 185 kilometres (115 mi) once this is done. Presently (2011), trains are running between Bankura and Rainagar.

The railway track was extended to Belur Math in 2003.