Dhaka to Chattogram

The rails between Dhaka and Chattogram run for 321 kilometres. The fare is worked out on 381. Since 20 December 2025 Bangladesh Railway's Eastern Zone has billed its long bridges as distance, each 100 metres of bridge counted as 2.5 kilometres of line, and on this route that added 35 kilometres to a fare table that already stood at 346. The railway says the money goes on maintaining old bridges, and the oldest large one on this line is the reason the train goes the way it does.

The line was not laid out to join the capital to the port. The Assam Bengal Railway built it inland from Chattogram in the 1890s for the tea planters of Assam, north through Cumilla to Akhaura. Dhaka reached it by a link built between 1910 and 1914, and the Meghna lay across that link until a bridge opened on 6 December 1937. So the train from the capital sets off to the north, crosses the river at Bhairab Bazar, and only turns for the sea at Akhaura.

Six named intercity trains make the trip in each direction, on two tracks the whole way since July 2023. The two fastest take 4 hours 55 minutes with one call or none. The slowest takes well over six and stops at the towns the others pass, which is also the better way to see the country.

Kamalapur is a terminus of 1968 under a roof of concrete parasols, and the trains that leave it are metre-gauge rakes of eighteen coaches or more. At the head of the two fastest, the Suborno Express and the Sonar Bangla Express, is usually a locomotive of Class 3000, an EMD GT38ACL of 2,200 horsepower built by Hyundai Rotem and delivered in 2020. The older Class 2900, 1,500 horsepower and built by the same company between 1999 and 2013, still turns up on this line. Both non-stop trains have run since 2023 with South Korean coaches from Sung Shin Rolling Stock Technology.

The first call is Biman Bandar, the airport station, twenty-three minutes out. On the Suborno and the Sonar Bangla there is then nothing until Chattogram.

North, to cross the river

The line runs north through Tongi before it swings east across the flat country round Narsingdi, and by Bhairab Bazar it is further north than it began. The Meghna is the reason. Dhaka's side of the river was joined to the Assam Bengal Railway between 1910 and 1914, but no bridge came with it. From 1915 a wagon ferry worked the gap, and caissons went down through as much as 20 metres of water from 1935 for the bridge that opened on 6 December 1937.

It is still in use, about a kilometre of steel between Bhairab Bazar and Ashuganj, and since November 2017 a second bridge of 984 metres has stood beside it, opened with a new crossing of the Titas a little further on. Bridges of this length are what the pontage charge now bills as distance.

Akhaura, and the tea line

Akhaura is where the capital's link meets the original railway. The Assam Bengal line came up from Chattogram through Cumilla and reached this junction in the 1890s, carrying on towards Kulaura and Badarpur for the tea gardens, which is why the route from Dhaka to the sea is bent like an elbow. The Indian border runs only a few kilometres east of the station.

From here the train heads south. The 72 kilometres on to Laksam were the last on the corridor to be doubled, finished in July 2023 and laid to both gauges. Near Cumilla the low Lalmai ridge lies just west of the line, the first relief since Dhaka and the site of a Buddhist monastery that was in use until the 12th century.

Laksam, Feni and the Sitakunda ridge

Laksam is the junction for Chandpur and Noakhali. Beyond it, double track laid in 2018 lifted the average speed to Chinki Astana from 38 to 65 kilometres an hour. South of Feni the ground finally rises: the Sitakunda ridge comes up on the left, with Chandranath at its crest, and on the right the land runs out towards the Bay of Bengal through fields and ship-breaking yards. Then come Pahartali, with the railway's workshops and the lake it dug to supply them, and Chattogram, where the through trains stand before going on to Cox's Bazar and the others simply stop.

Six named intercity trains run in each direction. Times are Bangladesh Railway's own, from its train-information service, as of November 2026, in local time (BST, UTC+6). Every train from Dhaka also calls at Biman Bandar, 23 minutes after leaving.

Dhaka to Chattogram

Chattogram to Dhaka

The Suborno and the Sonar Bangla make no other call. The Mahanagar trains and the Chattala stop at the towns along the way, including Bhairab Bazar, Akhaura, Cumilla, Laksam and Feni. The Mahanagar Express runs through to and from Cox's Bazar. The Parjotak Express (06:15) and Cox's Bazar Express (23:00) also carry passengers from Dhaka as far as Chattogram.

Trains are retimed at short notice. The live version is at eticket.railway.gov.bd (opens in a new tab).

Bangladesh Railway sells its own seats, online and at station counters. Online tickets open ten days before travel, and buying online needs a registered account with the railway. The Suborno sells seated tickets only, with no standing tickets.

Fares are set by the railway and last changed on 20 December 2025, when the pontage charge raised the distance they are calculated on from 346 to 381 kilometres. The Suborno and the Sonar Bangla cost more than the other trains in the same class, and the mail train, at Tk 150, is the cheapest way along the line.

No rail pass covers Bangladesh. Interrail and Eurail are European products, the Indian and Sri Lankan passes stop at their own borders, and Bangladesh Railway has no tourist pass of its own.

With an air-conditioned chair to Chattogram at Tk 857 to Tk 943, a pass would have little to discount. Seats are limited by the ten-day booking window rather than the price, and no ticket type changes that. As of November 2026.

The two fastest trains leave nothing to get off for between the capital and the port, so the stops below belong to the Mahanagar trains and the Chattala Express, or to a day taken at either end. Cumilla and Sitakunda are the two places on the line that repay breaking the journey.

Kamalapur is a short ride from the Motijheel business district and the hotels of central Dhaka. The overnight trains reach Chattogram at 02:40 and 05:15, well before any check-in, which is worth weighing against the daytime departures.

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