Balaghat is situated on the Jabalpur-Nainpur-Gondia section of South East Central Railway. The line was formerly narrow gauge (2 ft 6 in (762 mm)) for its entire length, but the section between Balaghat and Gondia was converted to broad gauge in 2005-2006, connecting Balaghat to India's national broad gauge network for the first time. Work is underway to convert the Balaghat-Jabalpur section to broad gauge as well under Project Unigauge. The legendary "Satpura Express" a narrow gauge train used to pass through this town which falls on the Jabalpur Gondia Section of erstwhile Bengal Nagpur Railways (earlier called BNR and now South East Central Railway). This train used to hold the unique distinction of pioneering and operating the only AC chair car service on the Narrow Gauge, and was also supposedly the fastest narrow gauge train of its kind in the world. Since the Gondia to Jabalpur route is under conversion to Broad Gauge, the narrow gauge railways in this section are now limited only to the Balaghat-Nainpur-Jabalpur route and the Gondia-Balaghat section now runs the "Demu Trains".