The 1,968-kilometre-long (1,223 mi) trunk line has been treated in more detail in smaller sections: The Howrah–Nagpur–Mumbai line cuts across the central parts of India in an east–west direction and traverses the plains of lower West Bengal, the southern part of Chota Nagpur Plateau, the Deccan Plateau, the Western Ghats and finally the Western Coastal Plains.

[1][2][3] The first train in India travelled from Bori Bunder in Bombay to Tannah (current Thane) on 16 April 1853.

[5] The GIPR and EIR, working jointly, completed the Howrah–Allahabad–Mumbai line thereby establishing a connection between Kolkata and Mumbai in 1870.

[6] The great famine of 1878 was an impetus for the fast completion of the Nagpur Chhattisgarh Railway track, but by then the idea of a route from Mumbai to Kolkata, shorter than the one via Allahabad, had set in.

[10] Howrah (Kolkata), Kharagpur, Tatanagar, Rourkela, Bilaspur, Raipur, Durg, Nagpur, Badnera, Akola, Bhusawal, Nashik Road, Manmad and Kalyan (Mumbai subarban) on this line, are amongst the top hundred booking stations of Indian railway.