Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor

The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) is one of the two flagship dedicated freight rail projects of Indian Railways — a 1,337 km electrified broad-gauge freight-only corridor connecting Ludhiana (Punjab) to Sonnagar (Bihar). When fully commissioned in June 2024, it became India's first complete dedicated freight rail corridor, handling exclusively freight trains at speeds up to 100 km/h vs the 60 km/h average on Indian Railways' existing mixed passenger-freight network.

The project was sanctioned in 2008 as part of India's strategic response to logistics bottlenecks: pre-EDFC, freight trains shared the same tracks as passenger trains, with passenger services taking priority. This meant freight trains averaged 25 km/h transit speeds, with cargo from Punjab/Haryana taking 5+ days to reach the eastern coal belt or Mumbai port. EDFC enables 60-70% faster freight movement across this critical corridor.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) — a 100% Indian Railways subsidiary — is the project SPV. World Bank provided ~$2.7 billion in funding via soft loans (covering ~50% of cost). Total project cost: ₹30,960 crore. Construction was tendered in 19 packages with L&T, IRCON, Tata Projects, and China Railway Group sharing the work.

EDFC's signature engineering feature: support for double-stack container trains. The corridor's loading gauge (vertical clearance) of 7.62 m allows two stacked 9'6" containers, vs Indian Railways' standard 6.25 m which only allows single-stack. Double-stacking effectively doubles freight train capacity per train. The corridor is also fully electrified (25 kV AC overhead) and uses ECRP (European Train Control System level 2) signalling — the first major Indian Railways line with this signalling standard.

Key infrastructure: 36 freight handling terminals along the route, integration with the Mundra-Vadhvan + JNPT-Mundra port-bound traffic, dedicated rail link to the Western DFC at Dadri (UP). EDFC handles ~70% of Punjab/Haryana grain + Eastern coal belt traffic, dramatically reducing transit times for India's strategic logistics chains.