The Grand Chord is a railway line in India, that is a part of the Howrah–Gaya–Delhi line and Howrah–Prayagraj–Mumbai lines. It acts as a link between Sitarampur (West Bengal) and Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction (Uttar Pradesh), previously known as Mughalsarai Junction, and covers a stretch of . The Coal India Corridor line that branches off from Dhanbad Junction and rejoins the Grand Chord at Son Nagar Junction is another major coal loading hub. The entire line lies under the jurisdiction of three divisions, Mughalsarai railway division, Dhanbad railway division and Asansol railway division. 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 Jharkhand and West Bengal coal fields. Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction is a transit division and the main objective is to maintain mobility of high density traffic. Traversing through Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand as well as parts of the fertile Gangetic plains of Bihar, the Grand Chord covers a stretch of .

The railways first came to eastern India in 1854, and the Calcutta–Delhi railway link, with a distance of more than , 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 . The cost of construction was around .

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.

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