Railway Minister shares video of Anji Khad bridge, says India's first cable-stayed rail bridge is ready

Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday shared a timelapse video of the construction of the Anji Khad bridge and said it is now currently ready for use. With 96 cables, this is India's first cable-stayed train bridge. The overall length of the cable strands is 653 km.

"In 11 months, India's first cable-stayed rail bridge is ready. All 96 cables are set! #AnjiKhadBridge PS: Total length of cable strands 653 km," the caption for the timelapse video read.

The video shows the location of every single cable, from the first to the last.

The bridge is being built in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir as part of Indian Railways' most difficult Udampur-Srinagar-Baramulla-Rail Link (USBRL) Project.

The bridge is approximately 80 km from Jammu.

The Anji Khad Bridge, which connects Katra and Reasi in Jammu and Kashmir, is the country's "first cable-stayed bridge" on Indian Railways. The bridge is part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) Project, a national endeavour.

The bridge is located amid the Himalayas' young fold mountains, which contain exceedingly complex, delicate, and frightening geological characteristics in the form of faults, folds, and thrusts, in addition to the region's seismic proneness. IIT Roorkee and IIT Delhi conducted detailed site-specific investigations.

The main pylon with a 40-m-deep hybrid base, the central embankment, and the ancillary viaduct were all built on the Srinagar end of the bridge.

The bridge's entire length is 725.5 metres. Given the ease of construction and typical site conditions, the bridge was divided into four sections: a 120-meter-long approach viaduct (called a "ancillary viaduct") on the Reasi side, a 38-meter-long approach bridge on the Katra end (CA2), the main bridge (473.25-meter-long cable-stayed portion), and the central embankment (94.25-meter-long).

The Anji Khad Bridge connects tunnels T2 and T3 of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link project's Katra-Banihal Section.

It is an asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge balanced on a central pylon's axis. The bridge's entire deck width is 15 metres.

The Anji Khad Bridge is supported by 96 cables with lengths ranging from 82 to 295 metres. In the main pylon construction, 40-metre-deep micropiles were utilised all around the circumference of the 20-metre hybrid well foundation.

Various innovative techniques and equipment, such as DOKA Jump-Form Shuttering and Pump Concreting Systems, are being used to surge its efficiency, improve worker safety, and reduce construction time by approximately 30 per cent.

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