Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the final sections of the Dedicated Freight Corridor at Vadodara on 8 September 2026, completing a network of about 2,800 route kilometres across the Eastern and Western corridors. Three western sections totalling 326 route kilometres, built at a cost of more than ₹20,700 crore, closed the last gaps: New Sanand to New Makarpura, New Umbergaon to New Saphale, and New Saphale to JNPT.
The corridors are freight-only lines built to carry double-stack container trains, which is the source of the economics. A single double-stack train from JNPT to Vadodara carries the equivalent of more than 250 trucks. The project’s central claim is a shift in journey time — roughly 30 hours for the equivalent road movement against 10 to 12 hours by rail — and more than 430 freight trains now run daily across the two corridors.
Alongside the corridor sections, the prime minister laid foundation stones for three railway projects spanning 329 km at over ₹9,700 crore, including third and fourth lines between Vadodara and Ratlam, and inaugurated highway and state projects worth a further ₹4,400 crore. The road works include six-laning of the Kamrej–Chalthan section of NH-48 and grade-separated structures on NH-53. The railway line to Jobat and Tanda Road, connecting tribal districts of Alirajpur to the national network, was also dedicated.
The corridor was conceived in 2004 and a dedicated company set up in 2006, making it a twenty-year build. It is India’s largest rail freight project since Independence. The strategic argument for it is that freight capacity on the conventional network was the binding constraint on both rail volumes and passenger services, and that separating the two is what allows either to grow — the same reasoning behind the high-speed rail corridors announced in the 2026-27 Budget.
