I have travelled through this route few times, but observed minutely only couple of times when travelling upto Bardhaman. First time, we took a crawling express upto BWN [via main line ] . On returning, we missed the direct non stop local to HWH, so had to take a normal local [again via main line, I think ]. I was impressed to see that a direct local ticket was available for KGP for only Rs 40; which is impressively cheap for 200+ km.
I have a question about the main and chord...
more... lines. Do the main and chord lines differ right at BWN and then merge at HWH or do they merge at some other station in between?