Services on the line are operated as an extension of the Kolkata Suburban Railway, partially sharing tracks with the Sealdah South section.

[5] The Calcutta Port Commissioners' Railway (reporting mark :CPCR) was a broad gauge (BG) port railway that opened in stages from 1875 onwards serving the docks area of Calcutta along the bank of the Hooghly from Chitpur in the north to Kidderpore Docks in the south.

[6][10] In 1907 the Kankurgachi Chord line was built bypassing Sealdah and linking the northern and southern sections of the Eastern Bengal Railway.

[10] With the silting of Hooghly river and inaccessibility of bigger ships most of the CPCR lines fell into disuse while the growing population and traffic problems of Kolkata made planners to think of new commuting solutions.

The Ginwala Committee of 1947 and the Garbutt Report of 1966 recommended forming a Circular railway with elevated tracks for lower expenses and easier construction for a north–south corridor.

[11][12] A high level Metropolitan Transport Team set up by the Planning Commission in 1965 to study the metropolitan transport requirements of Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Madras recommended in case of Calcutta, the construction of a part of circular railway known as suburban Dispersal Line (Dum-Dum to Princep Ghat) to facilitate the dispersal of the commuters arriving at the railway terminus at Sealdah and Howrah and a provision of Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) for catering to the intra-city traffic .