Jaynagar–Janakpur–Bardibas Railway: Timetable, Fares & Stations

The Jaynagar–Janakpurdham–Bardibas railway is the only passenger railway currently running in Nepal. It is a 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad-gauge line planned to run 68.7 km from Jaynagar in Bihar, India, to Bardibas in Mahottari district on Nepal's East–West Highway; only 2.97 km of the alignment lies in India. As of mid-2026, trains operate on the 52.2 km section between Jaynagar and Bhangaha (also called Bijalpura) via the pilgrimage city of Janakpurdham, while the final roughly 17 km to Bardibas awaits construction.

The line was rebuilt by IRCON International Limited, a Government of India public-sector company, under an Indian grant that the Embassy of India in Kathmandu puts at about INR 7.84 billion for the whole Jaynagar–Bijalpura–Bardibas project. Trains are run by the state-owned Nepal Railway Company Limited (NRCL), headquartered in Janakpurdham under the Department of Railways and the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, with operations and maintenance support from India's Konkan Railway Corporation Limited.

For travellers and pilgrims, the main draw is the short, cheap hop between the Indian railhead at Jaynagar and Janakpurdham, home of the Janaki Mandir on the Ramayana pilgrimage circuit. Regular passenger service began on 2 April 2022 (19 Chaitra 2078 BS), and by 2024 the company was reporting around 3,000 passengers a day.

Railways on this corridor are not new. The Nepal Janakpur Jaynagar Railway (NJJR), a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow-gauge line, opened in 1937 (1994 BS) during the Rana era, originally to carry timber and later passengers between Jaynagar, Janakpur and Bijalpura. The Janakpur–Bijalpura stretch fell out of use after flood damage in the early 2000s, and the surviving Jaynagar–Janakpur narrow-gauge service — for decades Nepal's only working railway — stopped in March 2014 so the alignment could be rebuilt to Indian broad gauge.

IRCON completed the first rebuilt section, Jaynagar–Kurtha, in 2019, but trains sat idle for more than two years while Nepal bought rolling stock, recruited and trained staff, put an enabling legal framework for railway operation in place, and rode out the Covid-19 pandemic. The new era began on 2 April 2022, when Prime Ministers Sher Bahadur Deuba and Narendra Modi jointly flagged off the service during Deuba's visit to New Delhi; commercial operations started the next day.

The rebuilt railway is engineered for speeds far above what the old narrow gauge managed, though actual running speeds remain modest. Since reopening, the line has become the showcase of India–Nepal rail cooperation, and its progress is reviewed regularly by the two countries' Joint Working Group (JWG) and Project Steering Committee, which met most recently in 2025 and 2026.

The project was split into three phases. Phase one, the 34.9 km Jaynagar–Inarwa–Janakpurdham–Kurtha section, was handed over by IRCON in 2019 and opened to passengers on 2 April 2022. Phase two, the 17.3 km Kurtha–Bijalpura section, was jointly inaugurated by Prime Ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal ('Prachanda') and Narendra Modi on 1 June 2023, with regular services launched on 16 July 2023 (31 Asar 2080 BS); its terminus is Bhangaha (Bijalpura) station in Mahottari.

Phase three, the final roughly 17 km from Bijalpura to Bardibas, is the long-delayed piece. Land acquisition and compensation disputes stalled it for years; a detailed survey began only in December 2023, and in February 2025 Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli told parliament that construction under Indian assistance would start soon. India–Nepal review meetings in 2025 and June 2026 again pushed for early commencement, but as of mid-2026 no completion date is confirmed, so treat any 'trains to Bardibas' claims with caution.

Reaching Bardibas matters because the town sits on the East–West (Mahendra) Highway, which would connect the railway to Nepal's main road artery and, in longer-term plans, to a future east–west Nepali railway. Until then, the Bardibas railway is a project under preparation, not a running service.

The operating Jaynagar–Bhangaha section has 13 stops — a mix of full stations and smaller halts. Jaynagar, the Indian terminus, connects to the Indian Railways network; Inarwa is the first stop inside Nepal, and Janakpurdham, 28.4 km from Jaynagar, is the flagship station serving the Janaki Mandir area. Kilometre figures below are distances from Jaynagar.

Not every train stops at every halt, and smaller halts have limited ticketing facilities, so buy tickets from a staffed station where possible. Stations for the Bijalpura–Bardibas phase have not been finally announced, so the full-line count will grow once phase three is built.

There is no permanently fixed Janakpur railway time table: Nepal Railway Company adjusts departures from time to time, and published times differ between sources. The broad pattern since 2023 has been two to three DEMU round trips a day between Jaynagar and Janakpurdham, with at least one service continuing over the full route to Bhangaha (Bijalpura). Trains typically leave the Nepali side in the morning towards Jaynagar, with returns from Jaynagar through late morning and afternoon; the last return generally leaves Jaynagar by late afternoon.

Journeys are cheap but not fast: the 35 km Jaynagar–Kurtha run is timetabled at about two hours including stops, putting Jaynagar–Janakpurdham at roughly an hour and a half. Allow well over two hours for the full Jaynagar–Bhangaha run. Note that Nepal time (NPT) runs 15 minutes ahead of Indian time (IST), so always confirm which clock a printed departure time uses.

Because schedules genuinely change — trains have been added, retimed and occasionally suspended for maintenance — verify the current time table at Janakpurdham or Jaynagar station or through Nepal Railway Company notices before planning a same-day connection. Treat third-party timetable websites and apps as indicative only.

Fares are deliberately low. The most widely published Jaynagar to Janakpur train ticket price is NPR 70 in the general (non-AC) coaches and NPR 350 in the single air-conditioned coach; shorter hops cost less and the full Jaynagar–Bhangaha run somewhat more, with children typically charged about half fare. These figures have been broadly stable since the 2022 launch but are administratively set and can change, so confirm the current fare chart at the booking counter.

Ticketing is offline only: there is no official online booking for Nepal Railway services. Buy tickets at the counters in Jaynagar, Janakpurdham or other staffed stations shortly before departure; the AC coach has limited seats and sells out first. Demand spikes sharply around Vivaha Panchami, Ram Navami, Chhath and Dashain–Tihar, when heavy crowding and standing travel in general coaches are normal.

This is an international crossing, so carry identity documents. Nepali and Indian citizens travel under the open-border arrangement with government-issued ID such as a citizenship certificate, passport or voter ID. Third-country nationals should not assume they can cross by this train: the rail corridor is not a designated immigration point for foreigners who need visa stamping, so verify current rules with Nepal's Department of Immigration and use a designated road border such as Birgunj–Raxaul if required.

Services are run with two 1,600-horsepower diesel-electric multiple unit (DEMU) train sets built at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai and supplied through Konkan Railway Corporation Limited under a May 2019 contract worth about US$7.1 million; they were delivered on 18 September 2020. Each five-car set has a diesel power car and four trailer cars, one of them air-conditioned, seating around 300 passengers with room for several hundred more standing. Because Nepal had no experienced broad-gauge workforce, NRCL signed an operations and maintenance support contract with Konkan Railway, which supplied loco pilots, technicians and training.

That support continues, at a cost. Reporting by The Rising Nepal in 2024–25 put NRCL's payroll at 103 Nepali employees plus 17 Indian technical staff, with about NPR 11.2 million a month paid to Konkan Railway for the deputed experts. Finances remain difficult: in fiscal year 2023/24 (2080/81 BS) the company earned about NPR 85 million — mostly ticket revenue — against roughly NPR 263 million in expenses, and its accumulated loan liability stood at about NPR 790 million by mid-July 2024.

Officials argue the railway's value is wider than its fare box: it has boosted Janakpur's pilgrimage economy and proven cross-border rail operation ahead of bigger projects such as the proposed Raxaul–Kathmandu line. Ideas under discussion to improve viability include cargo services and progressively replacing deputed Indian staff with trained Nepali crew.

Two future developments dominate discussion of the line. The first is completing the Bijalpura–Bardibas section, which would take trains to the East–West Highway and make the corridor a feeder for any future national railway. After years of compensation disputes, surveys were done in late 2023 and both governments have repeatedly signalled that IRCON-led construction is imminent — Prime Minister Oli said so in parliament in February 2025, and the June 2026 India–Nepal review again prioritised early commencement. Until earthworks visibly begin and a completion date is fixed, however, the honest status is 'pending'.

The second is a direct rail link between Janakpur and Ayodhya, the two cities joined by the Ramayana story of Sita and Ram. India ran a Bharat Gaurav deluxe tourist train on an Ayodhya–Janakpur circuit from February 2023, and since 2024 Nepali ministers and NRCL officials have said preparations for a scheduled Janakpurdham–Ayodhya service — initially about once a week via Jaynagar — are in the 'final stage'. Timings floated in 2024 envisaged a Saturday afternoon departure from Janakpur arriving in Ayodhya early the next morning.

As of mid-2026 the Janakpur–Ayodhya service remains a plan rather than a bookable train, dependent on agreement between Nepal Railway Company and Indian Railways on operating modalities. Pilgrims combining the two cities today typically take the DEMU to Jaynagar and connect to Indian Railways services onward. Watch Nepal Railway Company notices and India–Nepal JWG readouts for a formal launch announcement.