On the other hand, the opening of the bridge over the Rupnarayan River at Kolaghat, on 19 April 1900, connected Howrah with Kharagpur.

[12] Now most of the new trains coming from Balasore side and going towards Adra or Tatanagar stop at Hijli and bypass Kharagpur.

In order to increase passenger commute between Kharagpur and Hijli, new EMU services have been introduced between these two stations.

The Howrah–Nagpur–Mumbai line is classified under Route A of Indian Railways which allows trains to run at maximum permissible speed of 160 km/h.

The Howrah–Kharagpur section has been identified as one of the high-density automatic block signaling routes on Indian Railways.

Thus plans are to deploy Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS) on this section to mitigate the risk of signal passed at danger (SPAD) by loco pilots leading to accidents.