The much-anticipated engineering marvel, the world's highest rail bridge over the Chenab river in the Kouri area of the Reasi district, reached another milestone on Saturday when the overarch deck of the bridge was finished with a golden joint, just two days before India's 75th Independence Day.
Engineers will now be able to lay tracks on the bridge thanks to the golden joint. Kashmir will be connected to the rest of India for the first time since independence thanks to the rail network once tracks are laid over it.
Surender Mahi, chief administrative officer of the USBRL Konkan Railways, expressed his joy by stating, "It was a very big project for all of us." We had to build 26 kilometers of approach roads with bridges and tunnels to get here.
According to Mahi, the engineers overcame a number of obstacles to ultimately present the Indian people with a marvel of engineering.
"Works on the scaffold, including the rail tracks, will be finished in 90 days, and the train will ignore this extension on its way to Srinagar by December 2024. According to Mahi (Bakkal), construction on the rail tracks leading to Srinagar from this bridge has already begun.
“In order to accomplish this feat, we had sought technical assistance from various organizations, including IIT-Roorkee, IIT-Delhi, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, DRDO, the national remote sensing agency, GSI, and others. This is the location of the highest railway arch in the world. "The bridge is 35 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower," he claimed.
The golden joint completed the deck today, and the track will now be laid. Trial runs will then be conducted using trolleys. He stated, "Control rooms will be set up." He said that the project would cost 1,450 crore rupees.
"This has been a long journey," Sanjay Gupta, chairman and MD of Konkan Railways, stated. Civil engineers came up with the term "golden joint." It is the highest railway bridge in the world.
"We can confidently say that the bridge would be approximately 98% complete after the golden joint is finished," Afcons deputy managing director Giridhar Rajagopalan stated.
We were extremely relieved when we completed the arch closure project last year because it was completed accurately and without a mismatch. Furthermore, that provided us with a ton of certainty to deal with the excess part of the undertaking easily," he proceeded.
In the hazardous terrain of Jammu and Kashmir, Afcons is building 16 additional railway bridges for Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) in addition to the Chenab Bridge. The Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project includes all of the bridges.
Another official said that the entire 111-kilometer Katra-Banihal rail project was delayed because of obstacles like young Himalayan terrain, which has faults and folds and is a tectonically active area.
He continued, "In any case, our designers are working with all their conviction 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
He stated about the bridge, "We did all our work because wind velocity is higher in a valley and the bridge structure will create obstruction." According to our analysis, the bridge must endure a wind stress of 266 kilometers per hour for three seconds. As a result, we prepared it appropriately. The bridge then has speed indicators and alarms on both ends.
"We sorted out for seismic zone 5 in spite of the way that the district where the framework has come up falls under seismic zone 4," he communicated.
The task will be the distinct advantage in Jammu and Kashmir by coordinating with the whole central area of India and supporting the socio-economy of the UT.
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