Jammu Redefining
8
| February 9--February 22, 2014
TALLER THAN EIFFEL TOWER,
THE SKY BRIDGE OVER CHENAB IS INCHING CLOSER TO MAKING HISTORY
T
By Akshit Gupta
HE world's highest rail bridge
being built across Chenab
riverbed in Reasi district of
Jammu and Kashmir will take at
least three more years to be functional.
Railway officials say the bridge,
which is five times higher than
Delhi's Qutub Minar and far taller
than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, will be
completed by December 2017.
The arched structure will connect
Baramulla
to
Jammu
via
Udhampur-Katra-Qazigund with a
travel time of six-and-a-half hours.
Currently, it takes exactly double the
time - 13 hours - to reach Jammu
from Baramulla in northern
Kashmir, which is 60km from
Srinagar.
A big army of spirited laborers
from different parts of the country
are working tirelessly under the able
guidance of visionary engineers
and
professional
consultants
engaged by the Konkan Railway
corporation Ltd (KRCL) to give final
shape to the dream project.
It is considered the crucial link on
the 70-km long Katra-Dharam section of the ambitious UdhampurSrinagar-Baramulla
Rail
Link
Project.
Once completed the bridge will
soar 359 meters over the river bed,
six times the height of the
Panvalnadi bridge in Maharashtra
(the tallest so far in India) and more
than five times the height of the
Qutub Minar. The world’s tallest rail
bridge is on France’s Tarn River,
CMYK
with its tallest pillar rising 340
meters from t