Jammu: The inauguration programme of the much-awaited Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla-Rail Project (USBRL) by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been postponed due to bad weather.
Official sources here said that the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi was scheduled to inaugurate the World’s tallest Chenab Rail Bridge and Anji Khad Rail Bridge on April 19, and flag off the special Kashmir edition of Vande Bharat Express from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Railway Station to Srinagar.
He was also scheduled to address a public programme at Katra. “The Prime Minister was scheduled to visit Chenab Rail Bridge and Anji Khad Bridge, for which two helipads were readied, but due to the bad weather forecast from April 19 to 22, the visit has been postponed,” they said.
They said that the fresh dates for the inauguration shall be announced later, which is likely to be
April end.
The Katra to Srinagar Vande Bharat Express will have features like heating systems, anti-spall layers, and automatic doors. The train is designed to operate smoothly in cold weather, down to minus 20 degrees celsius. The Katra-Srinagar Vande Bharat will run on the world’s highest railway arch bridge and Anji Bridge constructed on the river Chenab in Reasi district.
The Meteorological Department has issued yellow and orange alerts predicting light to moderate
rains and snow in Jammu and Kashmir in the coming days
Meanwhile the trial run of the special Vande Bharat train took place on the Katra-Sangaldan section on Tuesday, the officials said.
A multi-tier security setup has been already put in place along the track and at vital locations in the Katra-Sangaldan section, as well as along the entire track to Kashmir, they said.
The official further said two Vande Bharat Express trains — one from Srinagar to Katra and another from Katra to Srinagar — will run on the inauguration day.
The Railways has conducted eight trials over the past three months on various segments of the Katra-Kashmir track, including major milestones such as India’s first cable-stayed rail bridge, the Anji Khad Bridge and the iconic arch bridge over the Chenab at Kauri — the world’s highest railway bridge.
The Railway officials said stretching 1,315 metres across the Chenab River near the Salal Dam, the bridge features a main arch span of 467 metres and can withstand wind speeds of up to 266 kmph.
The bridge surpasses the Eiffel Tower in height and is nearly five times taller than the Qutub Minar from the riverbed to the rail level.
The construction of this engineering marvel involved over 28,000 metric tonnes of steel. It introduced a first-of-its-kind cable crane system which was used to ferry materials across a 915-metre-wide gorge with two massive cable cars and pylons towering over 100 metres high, they said.
The bridge is part of the USBRL project and connects “not just terrain but aspirations — linking the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India with an all-weather, reliable rail route”. The ministry claimed that it is the “world’s highest railway bridge” at 359 metres above the riverbed.
Out of the total 272-km USBRL project, 209 km was commissioned in phases, with the first phase of the 118-km Qazigund-Baramulla section commissioned in October 2009, followed by 18 km Banihal-Qazigund in June 2013, 25 km Udhampur-Katra in July 2014 and the 48.1-km-long Banihal-Sangaldan stretch in February last year.
The work on the 46-km Sangaldan-Reasi section was also completed in June last year, leaving a 17-km stretch between Reasi and Katra, which was finally completed in December 2024.
Inauguration of Katra-Srinagar rail link by PM Modi postponed
