18.6.12

Highest Rail bridge in the world

The world’s highest rail bridge being constructed over Chenab river in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district will be ready by December 2015. Coming up at Kauri, it will be 359 m (1,180 ft) above the riverbed — five times the height of Qutub Minar and 35 m taller than Eiffel Tower. “It will be completed in 42 months from now,” said Rajesh Tiwari, director of Konkan Railways, the agency which is implementing the project. The bridge, whose estimated cost at Rs 512.74 crore in 2004 is likely to go up, 65 km from Katra, on the 73-km Katra-Dharam section of the ambitious Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project. “The 1,315-m-long bridge will use 25,000 metric tonnes of steel and it will be an engineering marvel considering the steep topography and fragile geology of the region,” said Rajesh Agarwal, ED. 
Observing that wind speed at its height may go up to 266 kmph, the engineers have decid
ed not to allow trains crossing the Chenab bridge if the wind velocity is more than 90 kmph. The railways has designed the signalling system at the bridge in such a manner that it shows the top light automatically when wind speed breaches the 90 kmph mark. Considering the inaccessible terrain of the Himalayas, the bridge will get a special coat of paint with a life span of around 35 years to protect it from harsh weather. Besides the steep topography and fragile geology, engineers constructing the Katra-Dharam line also have to factor in security concerns. 
For the 73-km section, which involves construction of 63 km of tunnels and 7.5 km of bridges, Konkan Railways is constructing 176 km of roads to access the project sites. Railways has already constructed 104 km of roads, which are linking to remote villages that were till now inaccessible. After remaining suspended for over a year due to geological obstacles and engineering challenges, the work on the bridge has restarted.

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