Chattogram–Cox’s Bazar Rail Line Project: The Cost of Unplanned Development
Bangladesh opened the 102-kilometre Dohazari–Cox's Bazar railway in November 2023 after spending about Tk18,034 crore. The project finally connected the country's largest tourist destination to the national railway and created a dual-gauge route capable of carrying both metre-gauge and broad-gauge trains.
But Bangladesh made one important compromise: the entire new railway was built as a single line. As of November 2025, traffic is still low enough for that single track to function, but the corridor was designed for far more than today's passenger trains. It was planned around tourism, regional connectivity, future freight and possible links toward Matarbari and the Trans-Asian Railway.
That creates a long-term planning question: why spend heavily building a strategic new railway, then leave one of its most expensive capacity upgrades for later?
Bangladesh Already Knew a Second Track Might Be Needed
The single-track design was not chosen because planners believed one track would always be enough. Bangladesh Railway's own project documents say the alignment and right-of-way were designed with future double tracking in mind.
The project therefore followed this logic:
build dual gauge from the beginning;
reserve space for a second track;
operate initially with one track;
add the second line if traffic grows.
That can reduce initial construction cost when demand is uncertain. But it also means future Bangladesh may have to mobilise contractors again, build bridges and track alongside an operating railway and absorb whatever construction-cost inflation has occurred by then.
The decision becomes more questionable because the railway was marketed as long-term strategic infrastructure rather than only a tourist service.
The Railway Was Designed for Much More Than Cox's Bazar Tourists
The original project objectives included integrating Cox's Bazar into the Trans-Asian Railway network and improving future connections toward Myanmar, India, Bhutan and Nepal. Planning documents also considered a future branch toward the Matarbari deep-sea port.
Matarbari does not yet have a direct rail connection to this line, so its future freight should not be counted as existing railway demand. But the fact that a Matarbari branch was considered during planning shows that Bangladesh expected the southeast railway corridor eventually to carry more than beach tourists.
If Matarbari develops into the deep-water logistics hub Bangladesh expects, freight movement, industrial activity around Maheshkhali and passenger growth around Cox's Bazar could all increase demand on the same regional railway network.
A single track can handle substantial traffic with good signalling and passing loops. Its limitation appears when trains travelling in opposite directions need the same section at the same time, especially when slower freight trains are mixed with faster intercity services.
The Bigger Planning Problem Starts Before Dohazari
There is an even stranger part of the project.
Bangladesh built a modern dual-gauge railway from Dohazari south to Cox's Bazar, but the railway connecting Chattogram with Dohazari remained an older metre-gauge corridor. Cox's Bazar therefore received a modern railway before the railway immediately connecting it to Chattogram had been modernised to the same standard.
The government later approved another Tk10,797 crore project to convert the Chattogram–Dohazari section to dual gauge. By November 2025, the project had still made little physical progress and its ADB financing had not yet been finalised.
The existing Kalurghat Bridge created another bottleneck. Trains were restricted to around 10 km/h while crossing it, so Bangladesh approved a new rail-cum-road bridge costing about Tk11,560.7 crore.
The corridor's investment picture therefore looked like this by November 2025:
These are separate projects with different scopes, so the Tk40,392 crore figure should not be interpreted as the cost of the Cox's Bazar line alone. It does show how expensive it becomes when a transport corridor is developed in disconnected stages.
Today, the Single Track Is Not Yet the Main Bottleneck
There is an important counterargument. Bangladesh does not currently need a second track simply because the first one exists.
A government task-force report published in 2025 found that the new line was operating only three intercity and two mail trains daily, with no freight service. It also reported that revenue was far below the levels originally projected.
That means immediate double tracking could itself become overinvestment if passenger and freight demand remain weak.
The more urgent problems in November 2025 were upstream: old track, the Kalurghat crossing, low speeds and the need for trains from Dhaka to enter Chattogram and reverse before heading toward Dohazari. That manoeuvre alone added more than 30 minutes to the journey.
So the planning criticism needs to be precise. Building a single line was not automatically a mistake in 2023; building the wider corridor in fragmented stages created the risk that successful future growth will require Bangladesh to revisit infrastructure it has only recently completed.
The Railway Could Eventually Become a Victim of Its Own Success
The strongest case for double tracking will appear if Bangladesh achieves the goals used to justify the railway in the first place.
More Cox's Bazar passenger trains, services from Rajshahi or northern Bangladesh, regional traffic, freight and future Matarbari-linked industrial demand would all consume train paths. Passenger and freight trains also operate at different speeds, making a single-track timetable progressively harder to manage as frequency rises.
Fortunately, Bangladesh did preserve land for future double tracking. That was good planning and should make expansion easier than rebuilding the corridor completely.
But reserved land does not build the second track, bridges, signalling or stations. Those costs will still arrive later, probably at higher nominal prices and while the existing railway is already operating.
The Real Mistake Was Building the Corridor in Pieces
The Cox's Bazar railway is valuable infrastructure. Connecting the district to the national railway was a major improvement, and current traffic levels do not justify claiming that its single track has already failed.
The bigger concern is sequencing. Bangladesh built a Tk18,034 crore new railway while the older Chattogram–Dohazari approach and Kalurghat crossing were still waiting for projects worth another Tk22,000 crore.
And if tourism, Matarbari, regional trade and freight eventually create the demand policymakers expect, the new 102-kilometre railway may itself need another major round of investment for double tracking.
Bangladesh did not build the wrong railway. It built a strategic railway in stages that could make the complete corridor much more expensive than if its long-term capacity had been developed as one integrated system from the beginning.
References
Bangladesh Railway
Asian Development Bank
General Economics Division, Bangladesh Planning Commission
Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha
The Business Standard
The Daily Star
SMEC
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