You might be kinda right, but the deal is, this route is stuck between 2 major Indian railways zones - HWH-GAYA-DDU-PRYJ and HWH-TATA-BSP-NGP. These places are lucky 'cause they got trains from like a century ago and they pass through some pretty big cities along the way. Now, check out this section - HWH-DHN-DTO-RNQ-SGRL, it was basically built for hauling coal, and that's still what it's used for. But then, things got unfair and the railway kinda ditched it big time. Everyone knows the mainlines I mentioned are crazy busy, but instead of finding other routes, the railway went ahead and added more trains. If they had a better plan and looked further ahead, the situation in CIC would be way better. I've already mentioned it in this /blog/post/5984523. If they start trains from HWH, the next stops until Katni could be in the ECR zone - DHN (NSG-2), CRP (NSG-3), BRKA (NSG-4), DTO (NSG-3), GHD (NSG-4), RNQ (NSG-4), CPU (NSG-5), SGRL (NSG-4), BEHR (NSG-4), KTE (NSG-3). DHN to BRKA is 120 km (BRKA can be skipped with a PTRU or RRME stop), BRKA to DTO/GHD is about 200 km, GHD/DTO to RNQ is around 120 km, RNQ to SGRL is 100 km (CPU can be bypassed), and SGRL to KTES is 250 km. There are also other small stations that can bring in money if there are more trains running. It's simple - more trains mean more money, which will lead to further development. If they add like 10-15 more trains, the true potential of CIC will shine through.