Delayed By History, Delivered By New India: Kashmir's Railway Moment

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Though the train to Kashmir might have been delayed for decades, it has arrived just in time. The wait in perpetuity is finally over, and it is the dawn of a new era
Within a month of the commencement of Operation Sindoor, it was Sankha Naad time for Bharat as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at 1200 hours on Friday, 6 June, flagged off two Vande Bharat Express trains — one from Katra to Srinagar and another from Srinagar to Katra.
Special Day
The Tricolour flies high over the Chenab Rail Bridge!It's a feeling of immense pride that this bridge seamlessly blends ambition with execution, reflecting India's growing capability to build futuristic infrastructure in the most challenging terrains. pic.twitter.com/PrqELwfO7k
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 6, 2025
In addition to being an extraordinary feat of architecture, the Chenab Rail Bridge will improve connectivity between Jammu and Srinagar. The Anji Bridge stands tall as India's first cable-stayed rail bridge in a terrain that is challenging.
The Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project ensures all-weather connectivity, and the Vande Bharat trains from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra to Srinagar will boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities."
Also taking to X, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw wrote: 'Ready to connect Kashmir with every heart of India… Vande Bharat."
Culmination Of An Audacious Dream
This latest wonder project of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) fulfils the more than a hundred-year-old dream of Maharaja Pratap Singh to have an all-weather, seamless rail connectivity between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of the country.
It also marked the culmination of the audacious dream envisioned by the visionary Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of seamlessly connecting 'Kashmir to Kanyakumari", thereby transforming mobility and driving the socio-economic integration of the Kashmir Valley with the rest of Bharat.
Engineering Marvel
The 272 km long USBRL project, aptly described as Kashmir's rail renaissance, constructed at a completion cost of around Rs 43,780 crore, is an unmatched engineering marvel. The complex project includes 36 tunnels spanning 119 kilometres in extremely difficult terrain and also boasts 943 bridges.
Majestic as the project is, surveying the railway alignment and constructing this 'Made in India wonder" amid extremely hostile terrain, inclement weather conditions and the ever-present threat of terrorism, stands as a tall tribute to the Indian railway engineers, workers, consultants and contractors.
Key Engineering Feats
In the paragraphs below, I describe key aspects of the technological marvel that the project is:
Tunnel T50, measuring 12.77 kilometres and connecting Khari and Sumber, is the longest rail tunnel ever constructed in the country.
Excavated using the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM), the tunnel navigates highly complex geological strata, including quartzite, gneiss and phyllite. The construction faced myriad challenges, including but not limited to sudden high-water ingress, landslides, shear zones and jointed volcanic rock formations.
To meet these engineering challenges, engineers bore through three adits (access tunnels), allowing simultaneous construction from multiple faces and thereby accelerating the timeline. In addition to the main tunnel, an escape tunnel was also constructed, with cross passages every 375 metres to ensure safety.
Safety and smooth operations are ensured by CCTV cameras, whose feeds are monitored from a central control room.
Other tunnels in the project longer than 10 kilometres include:
T80 Pir Panjal Tunnel (11.2 kilometres)
Tunnel T15 (11.25 kilometres)
Tunnel T48 (10.20 kilometres)
It is worth noting that outside the USBRL project, the longest operational rail tunnel in the country is the 6.5-kilometre Karbude Tunnel (also known as T-35) on the Konkan Railway near Ratnagiri in Maharashtra.
The unique Chenab Bridge — the highest rail arch bridge in the world — is a breathtakingly beautiful work of art and an architectural marvel. It is a testament to the in-house engineering capacity of New Bharat.
At a height of 359 metres above the riverbed, the bridge rises 35 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower. Spanning 1,315 metres, this steel arch bridge is the newest wonder of the world.
Constructed at a cost of Rs 1,486 crore and built to last 120 years, the bridge is designed to withstand the harshest terrain and most extreme weather conditions, and can easily endure wind speeds of up to 260 kilometres per hour. The structural steel used in construction is suitable for temperatures ranging from minus 10 to 40 degrees Celsius, ensuring resilience across seasonal extremes. Highly sophisticated 'Tekla' software was used for structural detailing, enabling high precision in design and execution.
Three: India's First Cable-Stayed Railway Bridge
The Anji Khad Bridge, India's first cable-stayed railway bridge spanning the Anji River, is another technological masterpiece of the ambitious USBRL project.
Situated 80 kilometres from Jammu city, the Anji Khad Bridge is set against a striking backdrop of snow-covered peaks. It towers 331 metres above the riverbed and stretches 725 metres across, anchored by 96 high-tensile cables. At its heart lies an inverted Y-shaped pylon rising 193 metres above its foundation. The total length of cable strand used in the bridge is an impressive 653 kilometres.
Remarkably, the entire structure was completed in just 11 months.
Over 8,200 metric tonnes of structural steel have gone into its construction, ensuring strength and durability in a region shaped by young, restless mountains. With the project lying in seismic zone five, this iconic engineering feat is also built to endure seismic tremors, strong winds and shifting geology.
Four: Special Vande Bharat Trains
Unlike other Vande Bharat trains, the ones being deployed on the Srinagar route are tailor-made to endure and successfully navigate the harsh Himalayan winters, ensuring smooth operations even in challenging low temperatures of up to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Heated windshields, advanced heating systems, and insulated toilets ensure that the train remains operational and comfortable throughout the year.
There is yet another innovation.
Supporting this route is a snow removal train that clears the tracks ahead, ensuring year-round services. Seismic dampers are installed to absorb tremors, offering a safer and smoother journey in this high-risk zone. Together, these efforts are reimagining rail transport, rewriting the history of train movement, and making it more resilient, reliable and future-ready.
Shankh Naad
Today is a day like never before for Kashmir and Bharat. What unfolded today, after more than a hundred years, navigated the steepest gradients, took innumerable contours, pierced seemingly impenetrable mountains, and crossed undulating valleys.
It was truly Shankh Naad time for Bharat — a day of deliverance, comparable in scale to the Chandrayaan landing on the moon.
Arriving at the Air Force Station in Udhampur earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi flew by chopper to the inauguration site to inaugurate the latest wonder of the world, the 'Chenab Bridge". Thereafter, he flagged off the first Vande Bharat Express from Katra to Srinagar, celebrating the moment of connecting Kashmir with every heart of Bharat.
125 Years In The Making
The historical context of Jammu and Kashmir's railway journey can be traced back to the late nineteenth century when, as part of his Punjab-Kashmir Project in 1889, Raoul De Bourbel, a Major-General in the Royal Engineers of the British Army, conducted the first survey for a rail line from Jammu to Akhnoor, located on the banks of the Chenab. Eight years later, the state would get its first rail line, from Jammu to Sialkot (in present-day Pakistan).
However, a rail line to the Valley remained a distant dream.
The vision of connecting the Kashmir Valley by rail was first conceived in 1898 by Maharaja Pratap Singh, the third and longest-serving Dogra ruler, who ruled Jammu & Kashmir for 40 years, from 1885 to 1925.
But his vision remained only a dream owing to the enormous technical and geological challenges posed by the mountains and valleys.
Nonetheless, in 1905, Pratap Singh approved the construction of a narrow-gauge (763 mm) railway line connecting Jammu and Srinagar via Reasi, climbing through the historical Mughal Road at 11,000 feet on the Pir Panjal Range. However, such an elevated pass would have meant the railway was not all-weather, rendering it impractical to construct.
With Partition in 1947, the state was disconnected from the Indian rail grid, and a new line from Pathankot to Jammu had to be laid.
Now On, Now Off
Post-1947, the first step towards a railway line to Kashmir was the extension, in 1952, of the Jalandhar-Mukerian branch line to Pathankot, and later from Pathankot to Kathua in 1966.
These were the first baby steps in establishing rail connectivity to Jammu. A railway line to the Kashmir Valley, however, was still nowhere in the planners' vision. In 1972, the Kathua-Jammu section opened, bringing Jammu onto the rail map when the first passenger train — the Srinagar Express (now Jhelum Express) — connected Jammu to Delhi. This development occurred against the backdrop of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, making it a remarkable achievement.
The Long Journey To Kashmir's Railway Dream
It was not until 1973-74 that a survey for a broad-gauge line through the Shivaliks was conducted, with a proposed construction period of ten years. In 1983, Indira Gandhi inaugurated the construction of a railway line from Jammu to Udhampur.
Meanwhile, in 1994, the new broad-gauge line between Udhampur and Srinagar was included in the Budget. Its scope was later extended to Baramulla. In 1995, the Udhampur-Katra rail link was sanctioned, followed by the Katra-Qazigund and the Qazigund-Baramulla links in 1999.
The 53 km line from Jammu to Udhampur was completed in April 2005, while the 25 km section from Udhampur to Katra was completed on 4 July 2014.
Though the line to Kashmir was first conceived during the regime of Indira Gandhi, little more than lip service was offered, and the railway dream of Kashmiris remained confined to the game of chuk-chuk-gaadi that children played in villages and towns.
Then came the visionary Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his declaration of the railway line as a 'project of national importance".
A Project Of National Importance
The credit must go to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for bringing the project into the national mainstream and declaring it a 'project of national importance". The following target was set by Vajpayee on 23 May 2002, at the end of his three-day visit to Jammu & Kashmir:
'The 287-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail line will be completed within five years at a cost of Rs 3,600 crore. This railway line is vital for Jammu & Kashmir from the point of view of acceleration of its socio-economic development, promoting national integration and strengthening India's security infrastructure… The project will be completed, and the first train will roll into the Kashmir Valley before August 15, 2007.
I am happy to announce the speeding up of the implementation of this ambitious project in the 150th year of Indian Railways. Our country has the requisite experience of completing railway projects in difficult terrain in record time, as is evident from the example of the Konkan Railway. Suitable mechanisms will soon be put in place for raising additional resources."
Most Ambitious Made-In-India Project
In 2002, Prime Minister Vajpayee estimated the total cost of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail line at Rs 3,600 crore. Though the total completion cost has surged twelvefold to Rs 44,000 crore, it stands as a testament to what 'New Bharat" and 'New Kashmir" can achieve. It is indubitably the most ambitious and most technically complex project ever undertaken and successfully completed by the Indian nation since railways first rolled between Bombay and Thane on 16 April 1853, with the running of the first passenger train between Bori Bunder (Bombay) and Thane, 34 km away.
A New Era Dawns
Be it for healthcare, economy, market penetration or tourism — life in Jammu and Kashmir has changed irreversibly. It is a marvel that our brothers and sisters in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir must be watching with great interest and must be longing for integration into Bharat, where they belong.
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I will conclude with what Prime Minister Modi echoed: 'Several generations in J-K passed away waiting for railway connectivity…". I would add: though the train to Kashmir might have been delayed for decades, it has arrived just in time. The wait in perpetuity is finally over — and it is the dawn of a new era.
The author is multidisciplinary thought leader with Action Bias, India-based international impact consultant, and keen watcher of changing national and international scenarios. He works as president advisory services of consulting company BARSYL. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
tags :
Chenab Bridge Indian Railways Kashmir Valley Narendra Modi
Location :
New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
June 06, 2025, 15:17 IST
News opinion Infra Vaani | Delayed By History, Delivered By New India: Kashmir's Railway Moment