Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Apr 28: Union Minister of State for Textiles and Railways, Darshana Vikram Jardosh inspected India’s first cable-stayed rail bridge, Anji Khad Bridge in Jammu region.
The Minister was accompanied by S.P Mahi, CAO/USBRL and R.K Hedge, ED/KRCL and a team of Northern Railway and KRCL officials.
S.P Mahi briefed about the project and explained various features of Anji Khad in the course of the inspection of Anji Khad Bridge.
While reviewing the progress of USBRL Project, the Minister lauded Indian Railway’s efforts to make the organisation best in the world.
“Overcoming geographic and climatic challenges, railways engineers and officials have conquered the invincible,” she said.
The country’s first cable-stayed rail bridge, the Anji Khad Bridge is part of the crucial Udampur-Srinagar-Baramulla (USBRL) railway project in J&K.
It is an asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge balanced on the axis of a central pylon and is being built in the challenging terrain of young fold mountains of the Himalayas in extreme geographical conditions.
History has been created when all the 96 cables of this bridge were fully installed in a position successfully on April 26, 2023 in a record time of 11 months braving all constraints.
The Anji Khad Bridge is an engineering marvel and it is the ‘first cable-stayed bridge’ of Indian Railway connecting Katra with Reasi in J&K on Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Line project.
This asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge crosses the deep gorges of Anji River, a tributary of Chenab. The bridge connects Tunnel T2 on the Katra side and Tunnel T3 on the Reasi side.
The total length of the bridge is 725 m which includes a 473 m long asymmetric cable-stay bridge balanced on the axis of a central pylon of height 193 m from the top of the foundation, standing at a height of 331 meters above the river bed.
The cable stay bridge has a 290 m span on the north (Katra) side and a 183 m span on the south (Reasi) side. The bridge has a single-line railway track and 3.75m wide service road.
The strands for this bridge are specifically designed with a 15.7 mm diameter and have three layers of protection-zinc coated, wax-filled plus PU/HDPE cover over the strands. The cable’s length ranges between a minimum of 80 m up to 295 m as a maximum. The stay cables are composed of 31, 37 or 43 strands.
Anji Cable Stay Bridge is designed with a total of 96 cables-48 cables each on the Lateral and Central spans.
The cables totally weigh 848.7 MT and the total length of cable strands involved is 653 km.
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