Around the World in Eighty Days was published in 1873. Do you remember what happened? Phileas Fogg reached Mumbai ahead of schedule and bought a ticket from "Bombay to Calcutta". However, despite what newspapers in London had reported, the conductor said: "The railway isn't finished… The passengers know that they must provide means of transportation for themselves from Kholby to Allahabad." That's how Fogg got to hire the elephant. I have always wondered where Kholby was - probably somewhere near Satna. Some researcher on Jules Verne might well have found out.
Of course, that Howrah-Allahabad-Mumbai line was inordinately long. Everyone knew that and this brings us to Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai. That's a distance of 1,968 km. On a map, this looks closer to a straight line, at least the Nagpur-Mumbai segment. In bits and pieces, this was eventually completed in 1900, thanks partly to the Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR). Oddly, one had to wait for BNR in 1871 before parts of West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh got connected through railway networks. One of the purposes behind setting up BNR was a shorter Howrah-Mumbai route. But take a look at the map again. Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai is not as short as it seems at first blush. A shorter Howrah-Mumbai route ought to be via Jabalpur. There is no problem with the Mumbai-Jabalpur link. However, the Jabalpur-Howrah link, cutting across Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, doesn't exist. If there was such a line, the distance between Howrah and Mumbai would become less. Some say it would be reduced by 400 km, others by 500 km. I guess, it depends on the precise layout of the line. The strange bit is that the British first seemed to have thought of the Barwadih-Chirimiri link in 1925. That's some 90 years ago. Chhattisgarh and Jharkand are mineral-rich and they were that 90 years ago also. The British wanted the link so that coal reserves could be exploited.
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Barwadih is in Jharkhand and Chirimiri in Chhattisgarh. The distance between the two stations is 182 km. Notice that both the Barwadih and the Chirimiri railway stations are connected by broad gauge lines, but not to each other. There is some stuff that is apocryphal and in the nature of railway legend. Since this history hasn't been chronicled that well, unlike that of major railway networks, you don't really know what is true and what is not. According to railway legend, for Barwadih-Chirimiri, the British did a survey, acquired land and even started construction in 1930. Then World War II intervened and that was that. Nothing happened for a long time, though the line seems to have been officially approved in 1999. At least, that's what a former railway minister said. In 2007-08, Barwadih-Chirimiri resurfaced and started to figure in Budget speeches. However, it began to figure in Budget speeches not as a line that would be built, but as one for which a survey would be done. So many surveys and re-surveys have been proposed for that link that Sunny Deol would have happily said, "Survey pe survey". In fairness, there are surveys and surveys. A technical survey isn't the same as a traffic survey that computes rates of return for what they are worth.
But the 2011-12 Railway Budget speech by Mamata Banerjee was very specific. "In the last two Budgets, I had announced 251 updating surveys/new surveys for new lines/gauge conversion/doubling. Of these, the following 190 surveys have been completed or will be completed by the end of this financial year. These lines will also be taken up in the 12th Plan." Since the 12th Plan will end in 2017, this was a specific commitment, though nothing much moved. It's a bit more specific now, because there is going to be a special purpose vehicle between the Chhattisgarh government and the railway ministry. This is for Barwadih-Ambikapur. The distance between Chirimiri and Ambikapur is around 80 km. I suspect the layout has changed a bit, which is why it has become Barwadih-Ambikapur instead of Barwadih-Chirimiri. Evidently, there will be another line between Raipur in Chhattisgarh and Jharsuguda in Odisha, chipping away at the Mumbai-Howrah distance further. Everyone knows that 19th century railway lines weren't always constructed in areas that would have furthered internal economic development, as opposed to extraction for export. We added few new lines since 1947, but that's changed recently. Land issues apart, I think Barwadih-Ambikapur will be completed in 2018. The reason for precision is that Geriatrix's age is 93 years.