Jammu–Baramulla line

The Jammu–Baramulla line is a railway track being laid to connect the Kashmir Valley in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir with Jammu railway station and thence to the rest of the country. The 338 km railway track will start from Jammu and end at Baramulla. It comes under the jurisdiction of the Firozpur railway division of Indian Railways' Northern zone. The tall Chenab Bridge lies on this line, which is the tallest railway bridge in the world. The total project cost in 2022 was INR28,000 crore (~US$3.5 billion). Construction of the route faced natural challenges including major earthquake zones, extreme temperatures and inhospitable terrain. The project has had a long and chequered history, and serious progress was made only after it was declared a National Project of India in 2002. Although scheduled completion date for the project was 15 August 2007, the revised timeline for the completion of remaining Katra–Banihal section of the project is November-December 2023. The extension of railway line from Baramulla to Kupwara has also been approved, and revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) for it was submitted in July 2020 by the Railway Board. 1897: The Jammu–Sialkot railway line is built from Sialkot in British India to Jammu in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Around 40-45 km in length, the line traversed a flat plain and did not face any particular engineering challenges. It provided the only connection of the princely state to India's rail network. 1902: The British Raj proposes a rail link along a route following the Jhelum River, connecting Srinagar to Rawalpindi. This would connect the Kashmir region of the princely state to the Indian rail network separately from the Jammu region, which was already connected to Sialkot. The proposal does not find favour in the Maharaja's court, firstly because it leaves out most of the state's population centers, which are strung along the more-southerly Moghul road connecting Jammu and Srinagar, and secondly, because it could accentuate the disconnect between the two regions of the state (Jammu and Kashmir).