The making of India’s railway marvel

This arch, which was completed in April 2021, weighing 10,619 metric tons, will support the bridge currently being built on it. Once the tracks are laid, it will connect the Kashmir Valley to the rest of the country by rail for the first time. It will also be the world’s highest railway bridge at 1,760 meters above sea level.

Most of the time, at that height, there are clouds not only above, but also under the arch; The winds are strong, with temperatures often dropping below freezing point in winter. To reach the unfinished part, engineers and workers have to travel daily by cable cars running on metal ropeways over the yawning gap.

When finished, the 1.32-km-long bridge will use 28,660 metric tons of fabricated steel, 1 million cubic meters of earthwork and 66,000 cubic meters of concrete.

Expected to be ready by September 2022, it is designed to withstand winds of up to 266 kmph, and is also unaffected by grenade blasts.

But the Chenab Bridge is one of the many engineering feats that the Indian Railways would have achieved after the completion of the 272-km-long Udhampur to Baramulla railway line, or the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway (USBRL) project, as it is called.

The entire length of this route, which will be part of the Northern Railway network, covers mountainous, inhospitable and earthquake-prone terrain, and requires exceptional engineering skill in laying the tracks.

Globally, only the 2,000 km Qinghai–Lhasa railway line in China can compare to that in the Tibet Autonomous Region from the mainland, which rises to an altitude of 5,000 m. “To my knowledge, this is the toughest rail project ever undertaken,” said Sanjay Kumar, Deputy Chief Engineer, Indian Railways.

The project was earlier expected to cost 27,949 crore, but, as per the status report of Northern Railway as of February 2022, it has already spent 26,964 crore with 81% work completed; The latest cost estimate is now 37,012 crores.

Fully funded by the central government, the railway line has been under construction since 2002, when it was declared a ‘National Project’.

But after delays due to several reasons—viability objections, land acquisition problems (1,900 hectares was to be acquired), conflicts with the Jammu and Kashmir Forest Department, and more—it is now nearing its end, having been inaugurated in April 2023. is likely to be determined. ,

three ‘legs’

At the time of independence, Jammu and Kashmir had only one railway link from Sialkot to Jammu, which was also closed after partition.

Only 28 years later, in 1975, with the completion of a line from Pathankot in Punjab to Jammu, the region was again included in the Indian Railways map. There was nothing more for the next 30 years, until, in 2005, the Jammu line was extended 53 km north-east to Udhampur through the Shivalik hills in the southern part of the union territory.

With USBRL, the national rail network will reach the heart of the Kashmir Valley.

The project consists of three ‘legs’ – a length of 25 km in the north-west from Udhampur in Reasi district to Katra, the site of the famous Vaishno Devi temple, a 111 km track from Katra in the north-east to Banihal in Ramban district, and Finally, a 136 km distance from Banihal to Baramulla, turning north and then north-west, en route to Anantnag and Srinagar.

Of the three, it is the second stage, or the Katra-Banihal route, which presented the most formidable natural obstacles and is still being worked on. The other two legs are long overdue.

The third phase was the first to be finished in phases by June 2013, but is cut off from the rest of the country’s train services while the second phase is in progress. The first phase had trains running from July 2014.

great prospects

Besides the Chenab Bridge, other engineering feats include the Anji Khad Bridge, which is also part of the second phase, being built over the Anji River—a tributary of the Chenab—between Katra and Reasi, 7 km south of the Chenab Bridge. Unlike the former, which is an arch bridge, the Anji Bridge will be India’s first cable-stayed bridge, the weight of which will be supported by steel cables attached to giant pylons (towers), which will rise above the bridge from the river bed below.

The bridge, at a height of 196 meters above the river, and spanning 473 meters, also required – due to the nature of the soil and rock in the area – huge engineering enterprise.

Tunnel 80 is also part of the third phase of the project, which cuts through the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas between Banihal and Qazigand. Completed in June 2013, at a length of 11.22 km, it is the longest rail tunnel in the country. But it is set to lose that status soon, with Tunnel 49’s ‘success’ or completed tunneling, part of the second phase, being completed last month. Once the track is laid, Tunnel 49 will be the longest from Sumbar at an altitude of 1,400 metres, to Arpinchala at an altitude of 1,600 metres, at a distance of 12.76 km. Not far behind is Tunnel 47, near the town of Sangaldan, not far from Banihal, also part of the second phase, which was completed in 2020, and which runs for 7.1 km. The second phase is particularly tunnel-heavy – of the 38 tunnels along the entire 272 km of track, of a total of 119 km, 27 are in the second phase. Out of these, the excavation work of 21 has been completed. This leg will also have eight parallel, ‘escape’ tunnels, crossing the main tunnels after every 375 metres, for emergency use by passengers and rescue crews in the event of a train breakdown.

All tunnels are being constructed using the latest ‘design-as-you-go’ approach, or the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM), which is refined at every level to determine the wall reinforcement technology used. employs surveillance. Type of rock encountered. It thus uses the inherent geological strength of the surrounding rock to stabilize the tunnel rather than fortifying the entire length, and is thus also more economical. For further protection, the tunnels include ‘edits’ (T49 has three of them) that are adjacent to the excavated areas to allow better ventilation and water removal.

“It is not only sections highlighted in the media, like the Chenab Bridge or the Pir Panjal Tunnel, that were difficult to build,” said Sanjay Kumar. “The entire Himalaya is geologically challenging, full of tectonic faults and thrust. Even building an approach road requires skill and immense effort.”

As for the bridges, there will be 927 of them in the full section.

Afcons Infrastructure Ltd, a construction and engineering company, is a company involved in the construction of several bridges. It mentioned on its website: “Hard effort has been put into digging deep foundations, cutting hills on 70 degree slopes and casting of RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) grid beams. Drilling holes for rock bolts in collapsible straits for Reasi and Salal yards, execution of cable anchors to protect foundations through the unstable and unpredictable nature of highly fractured dolomite rock.

In order to start work on the actual tracks, about 200 km of access roads were to be built in the initial form. A spinoff from the railway line is that it has also improved road communication, with 266 km of such roads being built, connecting 73 villages.

“Some areas in Katra, Reasi and other places where tunnels have been dug were almost inaccessible,” an official of the Konkan Railway Corporation said. The Konkan Railway, in its turn, has involved many civil engineering companies from both the private and public sectors.

Apart from Afcons, other companies operating on the stretch include Hindustan Construction Company Limited (HCC), IRCON International Limited and RailTel.

“Another major problem was the weather, with rain and snow often hampering our work,” the official said.

high hopes

While the Northern Railway has not given any estimate of how long the Udhampur-Baramulla rail journey will take, Kashmiris widely expect a drastic reduction in travel time between the two main urban centers of Srinagar and Jammu compared to existing road transport. which takes more than five hours. Once the whole track is on. Snow cutters are already in use when needed on full feet, they also look forward to all-weather connectivity by rail, unlike at present, when the Jammu-Srinagar highway hours (or even day) is blocked. Landslides during heavy snowfall or rain in winter. With faster transportation as well as cost-cutting, he expects the region’s economy, dependent on tourism and horticulture – especially the sale of fruits such as apples – to also get a turbo boost. About 70% of India’s apples come from Jammu and Kashmir.

Jammu and Kashmir Fruit Growers Association President Muhammad Yusuf Dar said, “Rail connectivity will give new life to the horticulture sector and save crores of rupees to apple growers.” “At present, it costs us approx. to transport apples to Delhi by truck 100 per box. After the railroad starts, I hope the cost will come down 30 per box, which will be a game changer for the business.”

Similarly, retailers and wholesalers in the Kashmir Valley expect their prices to drop due to lower transportation costs promoting local sales of goods brought in from the rest of the country.

Mushtaq Ahmed, a hardware dealer in Srinagar, said, “I expect substantial savings once the train service starts. Often my factory workers have to sit idle as we have run out of raw materials and are on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. The replenishment is getting delayed due to closures,” said Arshid Ahmed, an industrialist from Srinagar. “The train service will create a different world for us.”

Similarly, those in the tourism business expect many more visitors from the rest of the country. Ghulam Rasool Siya, President, Kashmir Houseboats Owners Association expressed hope, “Millions of middle and lower middle class people, who are not able to fly but find bus travel too difficult, will start coming to Kashmir once rail travel becomes possible. Will be.” The expansion of the railway line from Jammu to Katra has led to an increase in the number of pilgrims to the Vaishno Devi temple.

Once the USBRL project is completed, several extensions of the line are also expected, further improving connectivity in the Union Territory. For a start, the Center has already approved the extension of the main line from Baramulla to Kupwara to the north by 39 km. An aerial survey has been completed and the cost of its construction has been estimated. An ambitious 434-km line running east from Srinagar to Leh in Ladakh, touching Kargil and Dras, was announced as a national project nearly a decade ago, but little progress has been made on it since then.

Widening the rail network in the region will require a lot of expertise and expenditure, but it is imperative to do so in order to better integrate it with the rest of the country.