India’s costliest prepare to nowhere
The Kashmir Line connecting Jammu & Kashmir to New Delhi is ready to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 26 January. This self-importance venture has been described by a piece of retired railway engineers as the most costly, most unsafe and least worthwhile railway line on the earth. The temper of the individuals in Kashmir, who had rejoiced on the announcement, modified as soon as they learnt that each one passengers from Srinagar must disembark at Katra and endure a safety examine earlier than boarding a brand new prepare to finish the journey. Merchants and fruit growers of the valley, who thought it might assist transfer their produce, had been shocked to study that no items trains will run on this rail hyperlink.
The Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers Cum Sellers’ Union has described it as a joke. A nasty one. Why has such an important hyperlink—which has taken over twenty years to construct and whose common building value has been a staggering Rs 8,000 crore per kilometre, making it the most expensive single-track railway line on the earth—failed to supply a items prepare for the transportation of important objects? Alok Verma, retired chief engineer within the Indian Railways, factors out design defects that defy the creativeness. “Why did the Railway Board select an outdated gradient of 1 in 80, regardless of international developments permitting gradients as steep as 1 in 30? By doing so, it has restricted prepare velocity to a sluggish 100 km/h whereas fashionable strains obtain speeds of 200–250 km/h on steeper gradients,” he says.
“This antiquated strategy is compounded by the road’s inefficient 111- km size to cross a 50 km-wide stretch, reflecting a scarcity of primary engineering foresight. The result’s the road can accommodate solely 10–12 pairs of trains each day beneath optimum circumstances—one-third the capability of typical mountain railways, forcing the railways to go for shorter platforms, restricted loop strains and the discount of the size of trains. This under-utilisation gave quick shrift to the much-needed items line,” Verma explains.
Security specialists have additionally questioned extreme slope cuttings and the variety of tunnels and bridges. Whereas the worldwide benchmark is claimed to be 15–30 per cent, 97.6 per cent of the Kashmir Line goes by means of tunnels, bridges and steep cuttings. There are as many as 927 bridges and 38 tunnels on this 272-km lengthy rail route. Such engineering extra complicates rescue operations in emergencies; with the road situated in a landslide-prone area, there’s a corresponding enhance in dangers. Fireplace hazards in tunnels, Verma claims, stay inadequately addressed. To mitigate security dangers, the velocity and size of trains might now be severely restricted, additional undermining the road’s utility.
Moreover, why has the essential load deflection check—wherein sensors are positioned to examine the pressure and stress ranges that the bridge can endure—not been undertaken but, not even on the world’s highest arch bridge over the Chenab river? Load deflection checks are crucial to evaluate the long-term energy and stability of a bridge in addition to measure its energy towards highly effective earthquakes, excessive velocity winds and hydrological impacts attributable to water degree enhance.
Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has been preening whereas mentioning that the peak of the Chenab bridge is 35 metres larger than the Eiffel Tower. However this arch bridge is supported by solely two columns on both aspect!
The skilled Shreedharan Committee had questioned the security and stability of the bridge constructed over a 359-metre-gorge. They’d noticed that the location circumstances are so opposed and complicated that the steadiness of the slopes can’t be established even with probably the most superior expertise globally out there.
This may very well be one of many the reason why the Chenab bridge, which was scheduled to be accomplished in 2006 was accomplished 18 years later, in 2024. The railways performed a trial run of an eight-coach passenger prepare over the Chenab bridge on 20 June 2024. Verma claims to have written two letters to Vaishnaw in August and September 2024 asking how the Commissioner of Railway Security (Northern Circle) cleared two sections of the Kashmir prepare hyperlink with out having performed load deflection checks on all new bridges (excluding those that are replicas of current bridges which have already been examined).
Verma believes that 4 to 6 check trains, every one-third the scale of a traditional passenger prepare, ought to be in operation for a minimum of the primary 12 months after it has been established that each one the bridges, tunnels and different buildings on the road have been constructed in keeping with design specs and as much as required high quality requirements. Moreover, applicable subject checks must also be carried out to examine the efficacy of rock bolting and grouting. It must be identified that this line has already suffered monumental setbacks.
Adjustments needed to be made due to incorrect alignment, and a number of other bridges collapsed whereas beneath building. This noticed prices escalating from the preliminary estimate of Rs 2,500 crore in 1994–95 to over Rs 40,000 crore, with the Chenab bridge alone costing over Rs 14,000 crore. To totally grasp the implications of those figures visà-vis the abysmally low capability of the Katra–Banihal railway line, it must be identified that it’s costing the exchequer 21 instances greater than a significant two-lane freeway would have.
Asking how CRS and railway engineers may clear the Chenab bridge with out the requisite load check, Verma has demanded the appointment of an impartial panel of specialists to oversee checks on the Chenab, Anji Khad and different bridges. Lawyer activist Prashant Bhushan despatched a authorized discover to the railway minister mentioning that the Kashmir Himalayas are recognized to be extremely landslide-prone. Conserving this in thoughts, the skilled committee arrange by the railways had ensured that the railway line stretching from Banihal to Sangaldan and from Sangaldan to Reasi had been opened solely after the commissioner of railway security gave it a security certification.
Equally, load deflection checks had been undertaken on the Pumban Bridge close to Rameshwaram and the bridges on the japanese and western devoted freight corridors. It’s obligatory, he notes, that the identical be finished on this stretch as nicely.
In response to mounting criticism at having ignored such an important security difficulty, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw took to social media, with a put up on a load deflection check being performed on India’s first cable-stayed 725-metre-long Anji Khad bridge over the Anji river.
Who’s he fooling? It’s frequent information {that a} load deflection check is an elaborate one which “can take anyplace between three to 6 months,” as per a senior railway official who didn’t want to be named. “How can this prepare service be operationalised in a matter of weeks?” requested Verma at a press convention. One other legitimate fear is that each the Chenab and Anji Khad bridges have been constructed near the Line of Management (LoC) and may very well be simply focused by terrorists.
If these bridges collapse as a consequence of enemy assaults or earthquakes, the road may stay closed for as much as seven or eight years. The railway minister agreeing to take a seat with Verma and different specialists to resolve points being raised for years simply days earlier than the inauguration not solely reveals scant disregard for security, it actually places passengers’ lives on the road.
