New Delhi: As the express train chugs through verdant green forests, deep gorges and steep slopes, with rainfall lashing the glass window panes, it is hard not to be enthralled by the scenic views that unfold throughout the less than two-hour journey from Bairabi to Sairang, about 20 km from Mizoram capital Aizawl.
It is equally difficult to not wonder about the challenges the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) would have faced while executing the new 51.38-km rail line in such treacherous terrain.
The railway line from Bairabi, located on the Assam-Mizoram border, to Sairang has finally put Aizawl on the national railway grid.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday inaugurated an extension of the line that had so far extended only up to Bairabi from Assam’s Silchar. Uptil now, one had to travel by road from Bairabi to Aizawl, a journey that took six to seven hours. With the new rail line, it will take just about two hours to reach Aizawl.
That’s not all. Aizawl has also become the fourth north-eastern state capital after Guwahati, Agartala and Itanagar to get connected with the national rail network. While Dispur, a suburb of Guwahati, is the official capital of Assam, Guwahati City is considered the state capital for all practical purposes.
Besides the new line, the PM also flagged off the Aizawl-Delhi Rajdhani Express, Aizawl-Guwahati express and Aizawl-Kolkata express trains. While regular passenger service from Aizawl to Guwahati started from Saturday, passenger service from Aizawl to Kolkata and Aizawl to Delhi will start from 18 September and 19 September, respectively.
Nilanjan Deb, NFR’s public relations officer, told ThePrint that the Mizoram economy will get a boost with the opening of the new line and links with Delhi, Guwahati and Kolkata. NFR is one of the 17 zones of the Indian Railways.
“Mizoram is a landlocked state. Till now, people were dependent either on air travel, which is expensive, or back-breaking road travel. Now people have another option, which is cheaper, more economical and reliable. Beneficiaries will mainly be students, who travel to other states for higher education, patients and those doing business,” he said.
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Challenges, from weather to raw material
Railway engineers who worked on the rail line project told ThePrint that it was one of the most difficult and challenging experiences for them.
From having a short working window of five months in a year—between November and March—to sourcing everything from outside and transporting to the project site, it was gruelling from the get go.
“It was not easy… we had to transport construction material and heavy-duty equipment like girders and gantry cranes to the project site, located inside dense forests,” Vinod Kumar, chief engineer (construction) for the Mizoram project, said.
An Indian Railways officer on deputation to the NFR, Kumar said everything had to be brought from outside the state.
Raw material like sand, chips and stones that are put on the track came from Assam, West Bengal and Jharkhand. The gigantic girders used in the bridges were fabricated in Ahmednagar and Wardha in Maharashtra and transported to Mizoram.
“We first brought the machinery and construction material to the state from Guwahati in big trailers. Then they had to be transferred to small trailers and carried to remote sites, many of which were not accessible by road. We had to first build approach roads and then had to use cranes for pulling and pushing the trailer to the site,” Kumar said.
Even the gantry cranes that are used to erect girders had to be dismantled and then taken to the site, where they were reassembled again.
Samir Lohani, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Lumding division, told ThePrint that considering the kind of terrain, progress on the project was good.
“About 23 percent of the railway line passes through bridges. Around 30 percent passes through tunnels. There are several major curves. And even the 47 percent that is left is over very steep slopes, where the hill is soft and the soil is not stable. Besides, the entire region falls under seismic zone 5 (highest risk zone for earthquakes),” he explained.
In hilly areas, landslides are a big issue. To prevent the tracks from getting affected, Lohani said extensive slope stabilisation was carried out along the section.
The DRM asserted that the new railway line was built overcoming all these constraints and had been constructed to high standards.
The entire 51.38 km Bairabi-Sairang section has 45 tunnels and 55 major and 88 minor bridges. The line also has one of the tallest pier bridges over the Kurung river near Sairang. It stands at 114 metres from the ground.
What hindered work the most was the short working season and the difficulty in retaining labour working on the project.
“No local labourer was available. We had to get men from outside. When they saw the remote project site and how there was no phone network, many of them quietly left without informing,” Kumar said.
Railway officials also said that after facing such huge hurdles routinely, nobody bothered about smaller things like their camp sites getting infested with leeches or difficulty in getting decent home-made food.
“There were times when there was erratic supply of essentials because of the remoteness of the site. We went without vegetables for days on end. But we made do with whatever was available. Nobody, be it officers, workers or labourers, complained,” he told ThePrint.
Delays and cost escalation
The logistical difficulties also led to delays and cost escalation of the project.
At the time the project was sanctioned in 2008, its estimated cost was Rs 619 crore. But by the time it was completed, the cost escalated to Rs 8,071 crore.
The preliminary engineering-cum-traffic survey for the Bairabi-Sairang line was sanctioned way back in September 1999. But it could not take off because of the deep forest through which the proposed alignment passed. The Railway Board then went back to the drawing board and decided to conduct a reconnaissance engineering-cum-traffic survey, which was completed in 2006.
The project was finally sanctioned in 2008. However, work started on it only in 2014 and PM Modi unveiled the plaque for the new line in November that year.
Between 2014 and 2016, there was another important development on this section. The entire route from Silchar to Bairabi, which had meter gauge tracks, was converted to broad gauge.
In broad gauge, the rail tracks are 1,676 mm wide as compared to meter gauge, where the tracks are 1,000 mm wide.
The NFR will also open the freight facility on this section from Sunday.
“There is huge business potential. All essential commodities come here from outside. Besides, Mizoram has the potential to export bamboo, food products, etc. This line is going to be a godsend,” Kumar said.
Lohani said that electrification work is currently ongoing in the entire Bairabi-Sairang line and is likely to be completed by the end of this year. “Once electrification is completed, I am sure we will be able to run the sleeper version of Vande Bharat trains on this route,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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