GuardianRED
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Thanks, sad to see the delays due to some litigation. Hope now that works get completed. It will be a great achievement + and betterment for the regionHere is the history sir.
Vajpayee government declared Kashmir railways as a national project (meaning it had to be completed irrespective of Cost, time and return on capital projections). A deadline of 2007 was given to complete the project and it was divided into four sections for simultaneous execution.
The Pir Panjal range crossing was most challenging part of project owing to number of rivers (bridges), tunneling work and the fact that Himalayan region is most seismically active region in India. This part was covered under Section 3 or Katra to Banihal.
In 2008, Railways constituted a committee headed by Sreedharan Sir to specifically look into engineering aspects of the above section owing to repeated missing of deadlines and cost overruns.
The committee opined that the existing alignment (a railway terminology to define the path of railway line between two point) was a risky proposition on account of physical safety of proposed Chenab bridge (this point is only 60 kms from LoC and hence susceptible to sabotage) and the height of bridge itself. The committee was of view that the region is geologically unstable and hence they wanted the rail line to move further away towards east. This would've led to steeper track slope (or gradients) and more tunneling, but the height of bridge could be reduced to almost 1/3 of its present height. They were also of view, that since line would be electrified, steep gradients don't mean much.
View attachment 331935
Railway board however rejected this proposal of new alignment quoting increase in construction time and cost and persisted with original plan for the bridge.
View attachment 331936 View attachment 331937
Efforts are now on to complete the project by 2019/20.
Here is a small animated video to understand how Incremental Launching method is being used for construction of this behemoth bridge.
Usually it revolves around two things, absorption of sudden impact energy and allowing limited movement of structure by introducing flexibility.
Honeycomb type structure does allow absorption of some energy and i guess the use of metallic structure with some degree of flexibility would allow the bridge to withstand impact of explosion with limited or no damage.
Still i have the queries
1) how is external treat taken? i.e will there be a permanent force stationed there?
2) Like the animation, how is weather taken in to considered eg : snow fall here?