The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor with a route length of 1873 km consists of two distinct segments: an electrified double-track segment of 1426 km between Dankuni in West Bengal & Khurja in Uttar Pradesh & an electrified single-track segment of 447 km between Ludhiana (Dhandarikalan) - Khurja - Dadri in the state of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Due to non - availability of space along the existing corridor particularly near important city centers and industrial townships, the alignment of the corridor takes a detour to bypass densely populated towns such as Mughalsarai, Allahabad, Kanpur, Etawah, Ferozabad, Tundla, Barhan, Hathras, Aligarh, Hapur, Meerut, Saharanpur, Ambala, Rajpura, Sirhind, Doraha and Sanehwal.

Since the origin and destinations of traffic do not necessarily fall on the DFC, a number of junction arrangements have been planned to transfer traffic from the existing Indian Railway Corridor to the DFC and vice versa. These include Dankuni, Andal, Gomoh, Sonnagar, Ganjkhwaja, Mughalsarai, Jeonathpur, Naini/Cheoki, Prempur, Bhaupur, Tundla, Daudkhan, Khurja, Kalanaur, Rajpura, Sirhind and Dhandarikalan.