The tunnelling work under the Hooghly river, the first such under-river project in the country, to provide Metro connectivity between Howrah and Kolkata is slated to be completed next week. The under-river tunnel is a crucial link for the Railway’s 16.6-km long East-West Metro project in Kolkata. The 520-metre twin tunnel, one east-bound and the other west-bound, is built 30 metre below the riverbed. Commuters between Howrah and Mahakaran Metro stations will be under the river for only about a minute when the Metro train will pass through the tunnel at a speed of 80 km per hour.

Of the 16.6-km route of the East-West Metro project, the tunneling covers 10.6 km, of which 520 metre under the river. The under-river tunnel is being built at an expense of Rs. 60 crore while the total cost of the East-West Metro project is estimated at around Rs. 9,000 crore.

The tunneling work started in April last year and likely to be completed in the river section shortly, a senior Railway ministry official said. The East-West Metro is scheduled to be operational by August, 2019. The internal diametre of each tunnel is 5.55 metre and the thickness of the wall is 275 mm. The distance between the two tunnels is 16.1 metre.

There will be walkways in the tunnels for evacuation of passengers in case of emergency, the official said, adding it was a challenging task to dig tunnel under the river. For the Railways, besides the tunnel under the Hooghly river, drilling work is going on for the seven-km-long under- sea route of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail corridor to ascertain soil condition for India’s first bullet train path.

China’s first subway train, designed especially for mountainous regions with a capacity of over 2,000 passengers, has been delivered, the country’s rail-car maker said today.

China’s Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) Qingdao Sifang won the contract to develop a new type of train with a larger driving force and smaller turning radius.

The six-car train will run on Line 5 in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China.

Chongqing is a city of hills. The deepest section of the Line 5 subway is about 70 meters underground, making it the deepest metro line in China.

The train, with a carrying capacity of 2,322 passengers, can run at a maximum speed of 100 km per hour. The producer said it has contracted to make 39 such trains for Chongqing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

It has a 50 per cent better slope performance than the conventional trains.

Located in east China’s port city of Qingdao, (CRRC) Qingdao Sifang designs and manufactures a variety of bullet trains, subway trains and trams.

Many of its products have special functions, for example, those adapting to extreme cold and high altitude or environmentally friendly hydrogen-powered engines.

A railway bridge taller than the Eiffel Tower is being built across the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir and is slated to be ready by 2019. It will be the world’s highest railway bridge. The 1.3 km long “engineering marvel” will connect Bakkal in Jammu’s Katra and Kauri in Srinagar. The arch-shaped 35-metre tall structure is being constructed at a cost of 1,110 crores. The bridge will be a crucial link that connects the Kashmir valley to the rest of the country, part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project.

Once completed, it will break the record of the 275-metre tall Shuibai railway bridge in China

“The construction of the bridge is the most challenging part of the Kashmir rail link project and once completed, it will be an engineering marvel,” said a senior Railway Ministry
official who is part of the project.

The mammoth structure will be made of over 24,000 tonnes of steel and will rise 359 metres above the Chenab bed.  The special blast-proof steel can withstand terror attacks and can resist extremely low temperatures and high wind speeds.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged of India’s longest road tunnel between Chenani and Nashri in the state. With the roads in the region being prone to snow and landslides in winter, the Jammu-Srinagar national highway remains blocked for most parts of the season, cutting the Kashmir valley off from the rest of the country.

Bringing an end to all speculations, railway recruitment boards have announced the ‘Normalized mark for 2nd Stage Examination (CBT) of NTPC (Graduate) posts against CEN No. 03/2015.’ Candidates who had appeared for the examination held in the month of January can now get the score from the official web portal of their respective zones. The aptitude test or skill typing test is likely to be held in the month of June/ July 2017.

‘Provisional short listing of candidates who are to appear in Aptitude Test for the posts of Assistant Station Master (ASM) Traffic Assistant and /or Typing Skill Test for the posts of Junior Accounts Assistant-cum-Typist & Senior Clerk-cum-Typist will be published shortly on the website of the RRBs,’ says the Board.

In general, candidates may note that the roll numbers of the shortlisted candidates for Aptitude Test/Typing Skill Test to be published on the RRB websites shortly, may not include roll numbers of candidates being provisionally considered for the posts of Commercial Apprentice, Traffic Apprentice ECRC and Goods Guard based on their merit and sequence of options.

While aptitude test will be computer based, the skill typing test will be of qualifying nature. In order to qualify, candidates appearing in Typing Skill Test have to type in the language opted for Typing Skill Test during on-line application stage viz. 300 words at the minimum speed of 30 w.p.m. in English or 250 words at 25 w.p.m. in Hindi on computer within 10 minutes.

A tourist escaped with minor injuries when the car he was driving fell off a bridge today from a height of 50 feet on to a railway track between Ellanahalli and Ketti in the Coonoor-Ooty section.

The mishap disrupted train services in the section for nearly an hour, police said.

Soundarrajan, hailing from Thanjavur, was going in his car this morning, when he lost control of the vehicle, reportedly while trying to avoid hitting an animal as a result of which the car fell on the track, police said.

Despite sustaining minor injuries, he came out of the car, even as people rushed to rescue him, police said.

Passengers of Coonoor-Ooty train were stranded as the rescue operation lasted for nearly an hour.

Soundarajan told police that he had noticed a leopard crossing the road and out of fear lost control of the vehicle, which resulted in the accident.

In yet another ‘ransomware’ cyberattack in Kerala, six computers of the Southern Railway office were hit on Tuesday by the ‘WannaCry’ virus, but there was no data loss, railway officials said.

According to the officials, the computers belonged to the accounts department of the Southern Railway, Thiruvanathapuram division.

The network was immediately disconnected and the affected computers were isolated, they said.

The computers were working on ‘browser based internal software’ with centralised data base, hence there has been no data loss, the officials said.

No computers of any of the departments related to train operations or passenger services have been affected, they said.

After Humsafar, Antyodaya, Deen Dayalu –all of which were promised in the previous budget, Indian Railways yesterday launched the Tejas express.

Now, as per media report the Indian Railways is contemplating a similar superfast train. A report in the Dainik Jagaran said that Railways is planning to launch a train on the lines of Rajdhani Express.

The paper noted that the time between Delhi and Mumbai will be covered in just 12-13 hours. Jagaran, quoting Ministry of Railway said that the idea had come after the successful trial of Talgo train on the Delhi-Mumbai route.

The light weight Spanish Talgo train hauled by Indian Railways locomotive covered the distance between Delhi and Mumbai in 11 hours 42 minutes in its final trial last September.

The Spanish-made coaches with Indian Railways locomotive had left New Delhi at 2.45 PM on September 10 and reached Mumbai at 2.33 AM next day early morning on September 11 covering the 1,384 km stretch travelling at about maximum speed of 150 KMPH.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday flagged off the much-awaited Tejas Superfast Express from Mumbai to Karmali in Goa.

The train, which will cover the 630 km distance in less than nine hours, has ultra-modern amenities on board like LED TV, Wi-Fi and CCTV.

The Indian Railways will commence this week the final location survey for providing rail connectivity to the four important Hindu shrines in the hills of Uttarakhand at an estimated cost of over Rs 40,000 crore.

The Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), a railway PSU, has been entrusted with the task of undertaking the final survey for rail connectivity to Char Dham – Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath, and Kedarnath – through Dehradun and Karanprayag.

Earlier, RVNL had undertaken a reconnaissance engineering survey in 2014-15 and submitted a report in October 2015.

The REC survey recommends 21 new stations, 61 tunnels totalling into a tunnel length of 279 km and 59 bridges.

As the alignment will pass through the rugged mountainous terrain of the mighty Himalayas, the Railways has to meet the challenges of rail construction.

The existing rail heads or the nearest railway stations to the proposed Char Dham are Doiwala, Rishikesh, and Karanprayag.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu shall lay the foundation stone for the final location survey for single broad gauge line in Badrinath on May 13.

The four dhams have their varied and distinctive elevation levels along with spiritual significance.

The Yamunotri tracing the origin of the river Yamuna is situated at 3,293 metre above sea level while the Gangotri tracing the origin of the river Ganga is situated at 3,408 metre above sea level.

Kedarnath housing the shrine of Lord Shiva, is one of the 12 Jyotilingas at 3,583 metre height, while Badrinath housing the shrine of Lord Vishnu is at 3,133 metre height above sea level.

Besides pilgrims, a large number of foreign and domestic tourists throng the scenic state.

The ambitious project envisages bringing in a new era of safe and comfortable travel, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

The Indian Railways is also pursuing its ambitious project of constructing a new rail line between Rishikesh and Karanprayag and efforts are underway to fast-track the project.

These rail projects shall add momentum to the progress of the State by connecting far-flung areas besides boosting opportunities for tourism and economic development.