In a sensational development, a railway station will be constructed inside a tunnel at a height of 3,000 metres, on the strategic Bilaspur-Manali-Leh line in the vicinity of the India-China border. This development is expected to happen very soon, making it for the first time in India.
It is cognisance of the fact that many of the metro stations in the national capital and other cities are inside tunnels, once finished, the Keylong station in Himachal Pradesh will be the first one on the largest railway network to be inside a tunnel.
“The Keylong station, in the project, will be inside the tunnel according to the first phase of the location survey. This will be the first such railway station in the country. As and when the final surveys are completed, there could be many such stations on the route,” D R Gupta who is the chief engineer construction, Northern Railway, told PTI.
The station will be at an altitude of around 3,000 metres and will be inside a 27-km-long tunnel. The line once finished will link with all main locations between Bilaspur and Leh like Sundernagar, Mandi, Manali, Keylong, Koksar, Darcha, Upshi and Karu and other towns of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
The huge project will include 74 tunnels, 124 major bridges and 396 minor bridges, as per the first phase of the survey. “Once finished, the line will halve the duration taken to cover the distance between Delhi and Leh, from 40 hours to 20 hours,” said Vishwesh Chaube, general manager, Northern Railway.
The final location survey is expected to be finished in 30 months, after that a complete project report will be finalised.
(With PTI inputs)
