The Chenab Rail Bridge, inaugurated on June 6, 2025, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stands as the tallest railway arch bridge in the world, towering at 359 meters above the Chenab River—35 m higher than the Eiffel Tower. This monumental 1.3 km steel arch span forms a centerpiece of the 272 km Udhampur–Srinagar–Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL), a project decades in the making to integrate Kashmir with India’s broader rail network.
The bridge was a colossal engineering challenge, with work beginning in the early 2000s. It traverses harsh Himalayan terrain marked by fracturing geology, high seismic activity (Zone V), extreme weather swings from –10 °C to around 40 °C, and fierce winds exceeding 260 km/h . To withstand these forces, the structure uses advanced seismic base isolation, corrosion-resistant steel, concrete, and robust monitoring systems to detect wind loads and seismic tremors .
Constructing the bridge required precision assembly over a deep gorge: engineers erected a 467 m steel arch, assembled 93 deck segments, and connected 36 tunnels and 943 other bridges across the USBRL corridor . The structure is designed for integrity over a 120‑year lifespan, withstanding earthquakes up to magnitude 8 and catastrophic blasts equivalent to around 40 tonnes of TNT .
The bridge’s strategic and economic significance is immense. It enables the launch of specially designed Vande Bharat trains between Katra and Srinagar, cutting travel time to under three hours and ensuring reliable, all-weather connectivity to the Kashmir Valley . Moreover, the inauguration of the USBRL—long anticipated since Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and formally approved in 1994—marks a historic moment in India’s infrastructure development, with investments totaling ₹43,780 crore (₹437.8 billion), of which the Chenab Bridge itself cost approximately ₹1,486 crore (₹14.86 billion) .
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For decades, the Chenab Bridge was lauded as India’s biggest railway engineering challenge, symbolizing ingenuity, resilience, and unwavering national will. Its completion closes a crucial gap in Kashmir’s rail connectivity, enhancing defence readiness, boosting tourism and trade, and reinforcing the region’s integration with the rest of the country.
