India’s world’s highest railway arch bridge is being built in Jammu and Kashmir. This bridge is almost ready. The construction of this bridge started about three years ago. This bridge is being built on the Chenab River. The Ministry of Railways and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal have shared a video giving information about some of the facts of this bridge. The iconic ‘Chenab Bridge’ is one of the major structures to be built in this section. This bridge, being built on the Chenab River, is at an elevation of 359 meters above the river level. It will connect the Kashmir Valley with the rest of India. This railway line will also be helpful to the armed forces of the country for the region having strategic importance due to the two international borders.
The length of this bridge is 1,315 meters. It has a main arch span of 467 meters. This is the longest arch span of any broad-gauge line ever built. The bridge will be 35 meters higher than the Paris Eiffel Tower (324 meters) and about 5 times higher than the Qutub Minar.
The bridge is being built on the Richter scale to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above. The bridge will also stand in the wind at a speed of 266 kmph. No such bridge had been constructed in India before and hence no reference code or design was available for the construction of this huge structure. In such a situation, the architecture for this huge construction was created based on the experiences gained from similar projects all over the world and the opinions of experts from many reputed national and international agencies.
When the construction activity was at its peak, around 3200 workers were working on the site of this bridge. The bridge can remain intact for 120 years. The bridge, after being built, will be a major achievement of the engineers of the Indian Railways and a unique example of their engineering. The Kashmir Valley is to be connected with the rest of India through the 272 km “Udhampur-Katra-Qazigund-Baramulla” (USBRL) national rail project line of the Indian railway network.
News Source: IndiaToday
