Longest railway tunnel in Northeast scooped out

Haflong: The longest railway tunnel in the north east on the newly constructed Lumding-Silchar broad gauge line in Assam has been scooped out, said Northeast Frontier Railway officials.
The tunnel is situated near New Haflong station building and passes below Haflong town and the underground excavation work from both ends met each other on Sunday in Dima Hasao district, said NF Railway senior public relations officer (construction) Md M M Y Alam. The 3,235 meter long tunnel connects the newly built New Haflong railway station with Jatingalumpur railway station, he said adding it is considered as one of the most critical tunnel in the 210-km broad gauge track. It was scooped out with great difficulty due to soil conditions of the area and geological issues.
Adverse geological conditions were encountered during underground excavation of the tunnel and its completion has been seen as a major challenge for the construction engineers of NF Railway, he told reporters on Monday.
A high level team of the Construction Organisation comprising its Chief Executive Administrative Officer Ajit Pandit, Chief Engineer R K Ginger and others inspected the tunnel yesterday. Terming it as a feat of the Railways in 2014-15, Alam said Construction Organisation has in a major breakthrough made the much awaited and difficult tunnel gauge conversion project.
Though work on the tunnel had begun in September 2005, it did not progress well initially due to several geological problems. However, from 2012 onwards the work resumed and now the tunnel has been opened, Alam said adding, the remaining work of benching, lining and invert is scheduled to be completed by January next year.
There will be a total of 17 long and short tunnels and 79 major bridges in the entire alignment of Lumding-Silchar gauge conversion project of 11,168 meters for running broad gauge trains between Lumding and Silchar through Dima Hasao district, Alam said.
There will be 28 stations along the line and the maximum permissible speed for trains on it will be 70 kmph in the hill section and 100 kmph in the plain areas. As proposed the other works like earth filling, construction of major and minor bridges, station buildings, track linking are on, he said. With a present overall work progress of 96 per cent, NF Railway Construction is confident of completing the gauge conversion by March 31 next year at an approximate cost of around Rs 233 crore, he added. (PTI)