CHENAB BRIDGE (USBRL)

Chenab Bridge
-Cost of Construction: Rs 1,400 crore
-Project Execution: Udhampur–Srinagar–Baramulla Rail Link(USBRL) project; arm of
Northern Railway
-Vijay Sharma, Head of USBRL National Project in Jammu and Kashmir
-Location: Chenab river
-Banks of the Chenab: Kauri end and Bakkal end
-Height from the river: 359 meters
-Length: 1/2km
-Support to support distance: 467 meters.
-Total weight: 29,000 metric tons.
-Arch length: 550-meter arch (weighing 10,000 metric tons)
-900 meters cable crane (specially designed) was used in construction by Afcons
-Expected completion: by 5 April 2021 with fixing of 5.3m last metal piece
Specialties
-World’s highest railway bridge
-To bridge distance between Kashmir-Kanyakumari, uninterrupted train from
Kanyakumari to Kashmir
-Major leap towards completion of the 111-km long winding stretch from Katra to Banihal.
(5-km stretch from Udhampur to Katra, an 18-km stretch from Banihal to Qazigund in the
Valley and thereafter the 118-km Qazigund to Baramulla line were in operation; the only
missing piece was the Katra-Banihal stretch with Chenab bridge being the main engineering
hurdle in progress)
-will be remembered as the most challenging civil-engineering railway project of India.
Difficulties and challenges
-The Chenab bridge has been mired in controversy since its inception because it is bang in the
middle of Seismic Zone IV and nestled in the young, folding Himalayas making it tough for
railway engineers
-The biggest challenge was that the 550-meter arch, weighing 10,000 metric tons, had to
stand only with the support from the two embankments and without any intermediate pier.