Country’s first cable-stayed railway bridge in J&K to be ready by May
The country’s first cablestayed railway bridge, being constructed on UdhampurSrinagar-Baramulla-Rail Link (USBRL) over Anji river in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir, will be ready by May 2023. After completion, the Anji-Khad bridge, about 80 km by road from Jammu, will look like Worli-Bandra sea-link of Mumbai.
“Anji Bridge is country’s first cable-stayed bridge of Indian Railways connecting Katra and Reasi in Jammu and Kashmir. The bridge is a part of the national project of Udhampur-SrinagarBaramulla Rail Link (USBRL) Project,” said a Northern Railway official, adding the bridge is located in the young fold mountains of Himalayas having extremely complex, fragile and daunting geological features in the form of faults, folds and thrusts, besides seismic proneness of the region.
Detailed site specific investigations were carried out by IIT-Roorkee and IIT-Delhi.
Slopes of the mountain supporting one foundation of main span have been stabilised by a special hybrid foundation on Katra end due to space constraints.
The major portion of the bridge works including main pylon with 40 metre deep hybrid foundation, central embankment and ancillary viaduct were carried out on Srinagar end. The total length of the bridge is 725.5 metre. Considering ease of construction and typical site conditions bridge has been divided into 4 parts.
“The total length of the bridge is 725 metre consisting of the main bridge having the length of 473.25 metre, 120-metre-long ancillary viaduct, approach bridge of 38 metre on Katra end and the central embankment of 94.25 metre length,” said the official, while explaining about the project.
According to railway officials, it is an asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge balanced on the axis of a central pylon. The total deck width of bridge is 15 metre. It has support of 96 cables having cable length varying from 82 metre to 295 metre. The micro piles of 40 metre depth all around the circumference of 20 metre hybrid well foundation were used in the main pylon construction. The Bridge shall carry a single railway line plus a 3.75 meter wide service road, there is a 1.5 metre wide footpath on each side of the deck with an overall width of 15 metre.
The bridge has been designed to handle heavy storms of strong winds. The design wind speed considered is 213 kmph. Stateof -the-art tower crane (imported from Spain) of 40 tons capacity with extendable height up to 205 metre is being used for enhancing the construction activities at heights up to 193 metre. The bridge will also have an integrated monitoring system by means of numerous sensors installed at various locations.