The Hindu Business Line : Kashmir link project — Rlys to move coaches from Chennai by air

A TRAIN travelling by air? Indian Railways is set to create another first in the rail history of the country by seeking to airlift passenger coaches from Chennai to Srinagar to begin commuter services in the Kashmir Valley.

The Valley part of the ongoing Kashmir Rail Link project, connecting Quazigund with Baramulla through Srinagar, will be ready by December 2005, covering a distance of 120 km. The section does not pass through tough geological terrain and will be completed before the line gets linked backwards to Jammu.

"To show our commitment to the project, we have decided to airlift coaches and begin service for the local commuters in the Valley. The coaches will be built at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai and will be maintained at the coaching depot coming up at Badgam on the outskirts of Srinagar," a senior Northern Railway official told Business Line.

The airlift has been made necessary as the 142-km Katra-Quazigund link, that will connect the Jammu region with the Kashmir Valley, will be completed only in 2007. The section is technically the most challenging railway project ever attempted in the country, where the Railways is cutting an 11.43-km long tunnel at 2,900 metres altitude to cut across the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas.

"We are planning to fly 24 fully-built coaches that would make three DMU rakes. Even the largest aircraft on the inventory of the Indian Air Force, the Ilyushen IL-76 fell short of the requirements, so the IAF suggested that we explore the option of chartering the bigger Antonov AN-124 aircraft from one of the former Russian countries," the official said.

The Railways has now begun the exercise of locating operators in the CIS countries who operate these massive planes that can carry up to 120 tonnes of cargo.

Back of the envelope calculations done by the IAF and the Railways put the cost of the entire operation at close to Rs 30 crore, nearly the same as the cost of the 24 coaches.

The Railways and IAF had even explored the option of using the heavy-lift MI-26 choppers to carry the coaches suspended on chains from Jammu, the nearest railhead to Srinagar. But as the coaches weigh nearly 50 tonnes apiece, that option had to be abandoned.

Carrying the coaches in semi-knocked down condition was also given up because the National Highway 1A, which connects Kashmir to the rest of the country, is not wide enough to take the multi-axle trailers that were needed to take the bogies and shells of the coaches to the Valley.