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Jammu–Baramulla line

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68-623: 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 's Northern zone . Part of this railway route from Udhampur to Baramulla

136-458: A pneumatic suspension for riding comfort. There is a compartment for the physically disabled , with wider doors. Freight rolling stock for the route will come from the existing national fleet. Freight service (grain and petroleum products) will run between the 10–12 daily passenger trains. Maintenance will be done at the Badgam workshop, north of Srinagar. Three-aspect colour-light signalling

204-535: A public-sector company , is in charge of the 175-kilometre (109 mi) Dharam-Qazigund-Baramulla section. One hundred thirty-eight kilometres of the line, including the valley and the Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel , is operational. Hindustan Construction Company built the 11,215 m (6.969 mi) Pir Panjal tunnel through the range for about ₹ 900 crore . Afcons Infrastructure Limited and South Korea's Ultra Engineering will design and build

272-508: A slipformed (or pre-cast) concrete base (development 2000s). The 'embedded rail structure', used in the Netherlands since 1976, initially used a conventional UIC 54 rail embedded in concrete, and later developed (late 1990s) to use a 'mushroom' shaped SA42 rail profile; a version for light rail using a rail supported in an asphalt concrete –filled steel trough has also been developed (2002). Modern ladder track can be considered

340-440: A "clickety-clack" sound. Unless it is well-maintained, jointed track does not have the ride quality of welded rail and is less desirable for high speed trains . However, jointed track is still used in many countries on lower speed lines and sidings , and is used extensively in poorer countries due to the lower construction cost and the simpler equipment required for its installation and maintenance. A major problem of jointed track

408-415: A continuous reinforced concrete slab and the use of pre-cast pre-stressed concrete units laid on a base layer. Many permutations of design have been put forward. However, ballastless track has a high initial cost, and in the case of existing railroads the upgrade to such requires closure of the route for a long period. Its whole-life cost can be lower because of the reduction in maintenance. Ballastless track

476-481: A development of baulk road. Ladder track utilizes sleepers aligned along the same direction as the rails with rung-like gauge restraining cross members. Both ballasted and ballastless types exist. Modern track typically uses hot-rolled steel with a profile of an asymmetrical rounded I-beam . Unlike some other uses of iron and steel , railway rails are subject to very high stresses and have to be made of very high-quality steel alloy. It took many decades to improve

544-401: A heating and defogging unit, and is fitted with a one-piece glass window for a wider view. A snow-cutting cattle guard is attached to the front of the train to clear snow from the tracks during winter. Due to the valley's cold climate, the 1,400- horsepower diesel engine has a heating system for quick, trouble-free starts. Coaches have a public-information system (display and announcements) and

612-734: A minimum curve radius of 676 m. The maximum speed will be 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph). Provision for future doubling will be made on major bridges. Provisions for future electrification will also be made, although the rail line will use diesel locomotives initially; the region is presently electricity-scarce. There will be 30 stations on the route, initially served by 10–12 trains per day. Closed-circuit television cameras at major bridges, tunnels and stations are planned, and all major bridges and tunnels are illuminated. Passenger service will be provided by high-power diesel multiple units and heated, air-conditioned coaches have wide windows, sliding doors and reclining seats. The driver's cabin has

680-584: A possible realignment. The alternative alignment, proposed by the railway, reduced the track length from 126 km to 67 km. A committee appointed by the Railway Board recommended abandoning 93 km of the previously-approved alignment. On 12 November 2014, the Delhi High Court directed the central government to appoint a committee to review the 126 km-long section. An 18 km stretch of Leg 2, between Quazigund and Banihal ,

748-581: A stop here. There existed an old station in the city, on the Jammu–Sialkot Line , which had train services to Sialkot Junction , now in Pakistan, 43 km (27 mi) away. The station also linked with Wazirabad and Narowal stations, both of which are in Pakistan today. The old Jammu station was built in around 1897 but was abandoned after the Partition of India as the railway link to Sialkot

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816-465: A temperature roughly midway between the extremes experienced at that location. (This is known as the "rail neutral temperature".) This installation procedure is intended to prevent tracks from buckling in summer heat or pulling apart in the winter cold. In North America, because broken rails are typically detected by interruption of the current in the signaling system, they are seen as less of a potential hazard than undetected heat kinks. Joints are used in

884-625: A walkway for the people or horses that moved wagons along the track. The rails were usually about 3 feet (0.91 m) long and were not joined - instead, adjacent rails were laid on a common sleeper. The straight rails could be angled at these joints to form primitive curved track. The first iron rails laid in Britain were at the Darby Ironworks in Coalbrookdale in 1767. When steam locomotives were introduced, starting in 1804,

952-471: Is 115 to 141 lb/yd (57 to 70 kg/m). In Europe, rail is graded in kilograms per metre and the usual range is 40 to 60 kg/m (81 to 121 lb/yd). The heaviest mass-produced rail was 155 pounds per yard (77 kg/m), rolled for the Pennsylvania Railroad . The rails used in rail transport are produced in sections of fixed length. Rail lengths are made as long as possible, as

1020-745: Is a major railhead for other places in the region and for tourists heading towards the Kashmir Valley . The Jammu–Baramulla line begins here. Administratively, it is in the Firozpur division of Northern Railways . Jammu Tawi is well connected to major Indian cities by trains. The station code is JAT. The third longest running train in India, in terms of time and distance, the Himsagar Express that goes to Kanyakumari , Tamil Nadu in 70 hours, used to originate from here. Now it originates from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra railway station . Most premium express train of India, Vande Bharat Express , makes

1088-408: Is a manual process requiring a reaction crucible and form to contain the molten iron. North American practice is to weld 1 ⁄ 4 -mile-long (400 m) segments of rail at a rail facility and load it on a special train to carry it to the job site. This train is designed to carry many segments of rail which are placed so they can slide off their racks to the rear of the train and be attached to

1156-518: Is being installed on the route for safety, and GSM-R equipment may be installed in the future to improve its quality. Indian Railways is in charge of the 25-kilometre (16 mi) Udhampur-Katra section. The subsidiary Konkan Railway Corporation is in charge of the 90-kilometre (56 mi) Katra-Laole section. This is arguably the line's most difficult portion, with over 92 percent tunnels or bridges—12 kilometres (7.5 mi) of bridges and 72 kilometres (45 mi) of tunnels. Ircon International ,

1224-534: Is comparable. Although the Indian temperatures are less severe, the region experiences harsh winters with heavy snowfall. In the Pir Panjal Range, most peaks exceed 15,000 ft (4,600 m) in height. The route includes many bridges, viaducts and tunnels. The railway is expected to cross over 750 bridges and pass through over 100 km (62 mi) of tunnels, the longest of which is 11,215 m (6.969 mi). Engineering challenges include crossing

1292-494: Is cracking around the bolt holes, which can lead to breaking of the rail head (the running surface). This was the cause of the Hither Green rail crash which caused British Railways to begin converting much of its track to continuous welded rail. Where track circuits exist for signalling purposes, insulated block joints are required. These compound the weaknesses of ordinary joints. Specially-made glued joints, where all

1360-512: Is divided into four sections: Leg 0 has been operational since 2005. It was built over 21 years, between 1983 and 2004-05. Leg 1 has been operational since July 2014. The leg had missed opening dates in the past, including December 2005, December 2006 and May 2009. Work on the section, suspended for two years due to a partial tunnel collapse, resumed in September 2009. Although the section was planned to open by 2 February 2014, passenger service

1428-466: Is graded by its linear density , that is, its mass over a standard length. Heavier rail can support greater axle loads and higher train speeds without sustaining damage than lighter rail, but at a greater cost. In North America and the United Kingdom, rail is graded in pounds per yard (usually shown as pound or lb ), so 130-pound rail would weigh 130 lb/yd (64 kg/m). The usual range

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1496-463: Is known as Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula Rail Link (USBRL) . The 359 m (1,178 ft) high Chenab Bridge lies on this line, which is the highest 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 route is expected to be inaugarated on 26 January 2025. The railway line

1564-517: Is planned for an environmentally-friendly appearance and to eliminate the need for painting. The design and structure is similar to West Virginia 's New River Gorge Bridge . The project is managed by the Konkan Railway Corporation . Completion was scheduled for 2012 (four years after the first isolated section of the route was opened for local passenger service), and it requires 26,000 tonnes of steel. All tunnels are built with

1632-402: Is scarce and where tonnage or speeds are high. Steel is used in some applications. The track ballast is customarily crushed stone, and the purpose of this is to support the sleepers and allow some adjustment of their position, while allowing free drainage. A disadvantage of traditional track structures is the heavy demand for maintenance, particularly surfacing (tamping) and lining to restore

1700-456: Is starting to paint rails white to lower the peak temperatures reached in summer days. After new segments of rail are laid, or defective rails replaced (welded-in), the rails can be artificially stressed if the temperature of the rail during laying is cooler than what is desired. The stressing process involves either heating the rails, causing them to expand, or stretching the rails with hydraulic equipment. They are then fastened (clipped) to

1768-477: Is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails , fasteners , railroad ties (sleepers, British English) and ballast (or slab track ), plus the underlying subgrade . It enables trains to move by providing a dependable surface for their wheels to roll upon. Early tracks were constructed with wooden or cast iron rails, and wooden or stone sleepers; since the 1870s, rails have almost universally been made from steel. The first railway in Britain

1836-767: Is to bolt them together using metal fishplates (jointbars in the US), producing jointed track . For more modern usage, particularly where higher speeds are required, the lengths of rail may be welded together to form continuous welded rail (CWR). Jointed track is made using lengths of rail, usually around 20 m (66 ft) long (in the UK) and 39 or 78 ft (12 or 24 m) long (in North America), bolted together using perforated steel plates known as fishplates (UK) or joint bars (North America). Fishplates are usually 600 mm (2 ft) long, used in pairs either side of

1904-435: Is usually considered for new very high speed or very high loading routes, in short extensions that require additional strength (e.g. railway stations), or for localised replacement where there are exceptional maintenance difficulties, for example in tunnels. Most rapid transit lines and rubber-tyred metro systems use ballastless track. Early railways (c. 1840s) experimented with continuous bearing railtrack, in which

1972-590: The Chenab Bridge for around ₹974 crore. Gammon India and South Africa's Archirodon Construction will build the Anji Khad Bridge for ₹745 crore. Track (rail transport) A railway track ( British English and UIC terminology ) or railroad track ( American English ), also known as a train track or permanent way (often " perway " in Australia or " P Way " in Britain and India),

2040-598: The Chenab River on a 1,315-metre-long (4,314 ft) bridge 359 m (1,178 ft) above the riverbed and crossing the Anji Khad on a 657-metre-long (2,156 ft) bridge 186 m (610 ft) above the riverbed. The Chenab Bridge will be the highest railway structure of its kind in the world, 35 metres (115 ft) higher than the top of the Eiffel Tower . Both bridges will be simple. Weathering steel

2108-541: The New Austrian tunnelling method , and a number of challenges have been encountered while tunnelling through the geologically-young, unstable Sivalik Hills . In particular, water entered the Udhampur-to-Katra section; this required drastic solutions with steel arches and several feet of shotcrete . Along with shotcrete, lattice girder support were provided according to different class of rocks found along

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2176-472: The 148 km Katra-Banihal section of Leg 2 remains to be constructed. Until the Katra -Laole section of railway is finished by 2020, travel from Jammu Tawi (or Udhampur) to Banihal by road and from Banihal to Srinagar by rail is possible. The Banihal–Baramulla section is also being electrified, and track-electrification work has been in full swing since July 2020. In June 2017 Ministry of Railways also laid

2244-484: The Srinagar-Jammu highway), and halves the distance between Quazigund and Banihal (35 km by road and 17.5 km by train). The Banihal railway station is 1,702 m (5,584 ft) above mean sea level, and trains run from Banihal to Qazigund through the tunnel. The 5 km Banganga section was expected to be operational before the completion date of 2017–18 for the entire project. This leg contains

2312-400: The bolt heads on the same side of the rail. Small gaps which function as expansion joints are deliberately left between the rail ends to allow for expansion of the rails in hot weather. European practice was to have the rail joints on both rails adjacent to each other, while North American practice is to stagger them. Because of these small gaps, when trains pass over jointed tracks they make

2380-482: The canefields themselves. These tracks were narrow gauge (for example, 2 ft ( 610 mm )) and the portable track came in straights, curves, and turnouts, rather like on a model railway. Jammu Tawi Jammu Tawi (station code: JAT ) is a railway station in the city of Jammu in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir . Jammu Tawi is the largest railway station in Jammu and Kashmir . It

2448-540: The construction of two extremely challenging bridges, an arch bridge on the Chenab river and cable-stayed Anji Khad Bridge . Status update of under construction 148 km route from Katra to Banihal. Leg 3 has been operational since October 2009. The line from Baramulla to Banihal, across the Pir Panjal Range, is 130 km long. Since the 25 km-long Udhampur-Katra section was commissioned in October 2013, only

2516-465: The continuous welded rail when necessary, usually for signal circuit gaps. Instead of a joint that passes straight across the rail, the two rail ends are sometimes cut at an angle to give a smoother transition. In extreme cases, such as at the end of long bridges, a breather switch (referred to in North America and Britain as an expansion joint ) gives a smooth path for the wheels while allowing

2584-440: The desired track geometry and smoothness of vehicle running. Weakness of the subgrade and drainage deficiencies also lead to heavy maintenance costs. This can be overcome by using ballastless track. In its simplest form this consists of a continuous slab of concrete (like a highway structure) with the rails supported directly on its upper surface (using a resilient pad). There are a number of proprietary systems; variations include

2652-440: The end of one rail to expand relative to the next rail. A sleeper (tie or crosstie) is a rectangular object on which the rails are supported and fixed. The sleeper has two main roles: to transfer the loads from the rails to the track ballast and the ground underneath, and to hold the rails to the correct width apart (to maintain the rail gauge ). They are generally laid transversely to the rails. Various methods exist for fixing

2720-420: The entire terrain of mountains in the proposed project. Although the rail line is being built through a mountainous region, a one-percent ruling gradient has been set to provide a safe, smooth, reliable journey. Bank engines will not be required, making the journey quicker and smoother. It will use 5 ft 6 in ( 1,676 mm ) broad gauge continuous welded rail laid on concrete sleepers, with

2788-697: The foundation stone of five new halt railway stations on the Banihal–Baramulla section i. e. Sangdan, Ratnipora, Razwan, Monghall and Nadigam but civil works of these stations has yet to start. The line may be the most difficult rail project undertaken on the Indian subcontinent . The young Himalayas are geologically surprising and problematic. The track's alignment presents one of the greatest railway engineering challenges ever faced; only Tibet 's Qingzang Railway , completed in 2006 across permafrost and climbing to over 5,000 m (16,000 ft) above sea level,

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2856-428: The gaps are filled with epoxy resin , increase the strength again. As an alternative to the insulated joint, audio frequency track circuits can be employed using a tuned loop formed in approximately 20 m (66 ft) of the rail as part of the blocking circuit. Some insulated joints are unavoidable within turnouts. Another alternative is an axle counter , which can reduce the number of track circuits and thus

2924-626: The intrinsic weakness in resisting vertical loading results in the ballast becoming depressed and a heavy maintenance workload is imposed to prevent unacceptable geometrical defects at the joints. The joints also needed to be lubricated, and wear at the fishplate (joint bar) mating surfaces needed to be rectified by shimming. For this reason jointed track is not financially appropriate for heavily operated railroads. Timber sleepers are of many available timbers, and are often treated with creosote , chromated copper arsenate , or other wood preservatives. Pre-stressed concrete sleepers are often used where timber

2992-480: The iron came loose, began to curl, and intruded into the floors of the coaches. The iron strap rail coming through the floors of the coaches came to be referred to as "snake heads" by early railroaders. The Deeside Tramway in North Wales used this form of rail. It opened around 1870 and closed in 1947, with long sections still using these rails. It was one of the last uses of iron-topped wooden rails. Rail

3060-402: The joints between rails are a source of weakness. Throughout the history of rail production, lengths have increased as manufacturing processes have improved. The following are lengths of single sections produced by steel mills , without any thermite welding . Shorter rails may be welded with flashbutt welding , but the following rail lengths are unwelded. Welding of rails into longer lengths

3128-888: The mid- to late-20th century used rails 39 feet (11.9 m) long so they could be carried in gondola cars ( open wagons ), often 40 feet (12.2 m) long; as gondola sizes increased, so did rail lengths. According to the Railway Gazette International the planned-but-cancelled 150-kilometre rail line for the Baffinland Iron Mine , on Baffin Island , would have used older carbon steel alloys for its rails, instead of more modern, higher performance alloys, because modern alloy rails can become brittle at very low temperatures. Early North American railroads used iron on top of wooden rails as an economy measure but gave up this method of construction after

3196-620: The number of insulated rail joints required. Most modern railways use continuous welded rail (CWR), sometimes referred to as ribbon rails or seamless rails . In this form of track, the rails are welded together by utilising flash butt welding to form one continuous rail that may be several kilometres long. Because there are few joints, this form of track is very strong, gives a smooth ride, and needs less maintenance; trains can travel on it at higher speeds and with less friction. Welded rails are more expensive to lay than jointed tracks, but have much lower maintenance costs. The first welded track

3264-404: The outside of sharp curves compared to the rails on the inside. Rails can be supplied pre-drilled with boltholes for fishplates or without where they will be welded into place. There are usually two or three boltholes at each end. Rails are produced in fixed lengths and need to be joined end-to-end to make a continuous surface on which trains may run. The traditional method of joining the rails

3332-423: The quality of the materials, including the change from iron to steel. The stronger the rails and the rest of the trackwork, the heavier and faster the trains the track can carry. Other profiles of rail include: bullhead rail ; grooved rail ; flat-bottomed rail (Vignoles rail or flanged T-rail); bridge rail (inverted U–shaped used in baulk road ); and Barlow rail (inverted V). North American railroads until

3400-682: The rail by special clips that resist longitudinal movement of the rail. There is no theoretical limit to how long a welded rail can be. However, if longitudinal and lateral restraint are insufficient, the track could become distorted in hot weather and cause a derailment. Distortion due to heat expansion is known in North America as sun kink , and elsewhere as buckling. In extreme hot weather special inspections are required to monitor sections of track known to be problematic. In North American practice, extreme temperature conditions will trigger slow orders to allow for crews to react to buckling or "sun kinks" if encountered. The German railway company Deutsche Bahn

3468-425: The rail ends and bolted together (usually four, but sometimes six bolts per joint). The bolts have alternating orientations so that in the event of a derailment and a wheel flange striking the joint, only some of the bolts will be sheared, reducing the likelihood of the rails misaligning with each other and exacerbating the derailment. This technique is not applied universally; European practice being to have all

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3536-500: The rail to the sleeper. Historically, spikes gave way to cast iron chairs fixed to the sleeper. More recently, springs (such as Pandrol clips ) are used to fix the rail to the sleeper chair. Sometimes rail tracks are designed to be portable and moved from one place to another as required. During construction of the Panama Canal , tracks were moved around excavation works. These track gauge were 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) and

3604-655: The rail was supported along its length, with examples including Brunel's baulk road on the Great Western Railway , as well as use on the Newcastle and North Shields Railway , on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to a design by John Hawkshaw , and elsewhere. Continuous-bearing designs were also promoted by other engineers. The system was tested on the Baltimore and Ohio railway in the 1840s, but

3672-562: The rolling stock full size. Portable tracks have often been used in open pit mines. In 1880 in New York City , sections of heavy portable track (along with much other improvised technology) helped in the move of the ancient obelisk in Central Park to its final location from the dock where it was unloaded from the cargo ship SS Dessoug . Cane railways often had permanent tracks for the main lines, with portable tracks serving

3740-426: The sleepers in their expanded form. This process ensures that the rail will not expand much further in subsequent hot weather. In cold weather the rails try to contract, but because they are firmly fastened, cannot do so. In effect, stressed rails are a bit like a piece of stretched elastic firmly fastened down. In extremely cold weather, rails are heated to prevent "pull aparts". CWR is laid (including fastening) at

3808-540: The sleepers with base plates that spread the load. When concrete sleepers are used, a plastic or rubber pad is usually placed between the rail and the tie plate. Rail is usually attached to the sleeper with resilient fastenings, although cut spikes are widely used in North America. For much of the 20th century, rail track used softwood timber sleepers and jointed rails, and a considerable amount of this track remains on secondary and tertiary routes. In North America and Australia, flat-bottomed rails were typically fastened to

3876-480: The sleepers with dog spikes through a flat tie plate. In Britain and Ireland, bullhead rails were carried in cast-iron chairs which were spiked to the sleepers. In 1936, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway pioneered the conversion to flat-bottomed rail in Britain, though earlier lines had made some use of it. Jointed rails were used at first because contemporary technology did not offer any alternative. However,

3944-511: The ties (sleepers) in a continuous operation. If not restrained, rails would lengthen in hot weather and shrink in cold weather. To provide this restraint, the rail is prevented from moving in relation to the sleeper by use of clips or anchors. Attention needs to be paid to compacting the ballast effectively, including under, between, and at the ends of the sleepers, to prevent the sleepers from moving. Anchors are more common for wooden sleepers, whereas most concrete or steel sleepers are fastened to

4012-406: The track then in use proved too weak to carry the additional weight. Richard Trevithick 's pioneering locomotive at Pen-y-darren broke the plateway track and had to be withdrawn. As locomotives became more widespread in the 1810s and 1820s, engineers built rigid track formations, with iron rails mounted on stone sleepers, and cast-iron chairs holding them in place. This proved to be a mistake, and

4080-525: Was authorised on 26 June 2013. The stretch includes the 11.215-km (7-mile) Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel , also known as the Banihal railway tunnel. India's longest rail tunnel, it is 8.4 m wide and 7.39 m high. The tunnel includes a 3 m-wide service road for maintenance and emergency use. Its average elevation, 1760 m, is 440 m below the existing road tunnel. The tunnel facilitates transportation during winter (when inclement weather closes

4148-579: Was broken. Jammu had no rail services until 1971, when the Indian Railways laid the Pathankot –Jammu Tawi broad-gauge line. The new Jammu Tawi station was opened in 1975. In 2000, much of the old railway station was demolished to make way for an art centre. Previously, was managed by the post of DTM which is now also named as Station Director. The present Station Director (SD) is Sh. Uchit Singhal (an IRTS officer of 2014 batch). The Jammu station

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4216-464: Was delayed due to Commission of Railway Safety concerns about one bridge and tunnel. The route includes seven tunnels and 30 bridges. The section was opened on 4 July 2014. Leg 2, running 111 km from Katra to Banihal is under construction, and missed the deadline in December 2023. Construction on the leg has been beset by technical difficulties with alignment and disputes with contractors, and

4284-467: Was first introduced around 1893, making train rides quieter and safer. With the introduction of thermite welding after 1899, the process became less labour-intensive, and ubiquitous. Modern production techniques allowed the production of longer unwelded segments. Newer longer rails tend to be made as simple multiples of older shorter rails, so that old rails can be replaced without cutting. Some cutting would be needed as slightly longer rails are needed on

4352-432: Was found to be more expensive to maintain than rail with cross sleepers . This type of track still exists on some bridges on Network Rail where the timber baulks are called waybeams or longitudinal timbers. Generally the speed over such structures is low. Later applications of continuously supported track include Balfour Beatty 's 'embedded slab track', which uses a rounded rectangular rail profile (BB14072) embedded in

4420-467: Was originally expected to be finished in 2017–18. This is the line's most difficult section of the rail line, with 62 bridges and a number of tunnels totalling 10 km out of total 129 km. It requires 262 km of access roads connecting 147,000 people in 73 villages; 160 km, connecting 29 villages, is completed. In July 2008, work on part of the Katra-Banihal section was suspended for

4488-466: Was soon replaced with flexible track structures that allowed a degree of elastic movement as trains passed over them. Traditionally, tracks are constructed using flat-bottomed steel rails laid on and spiked or screwed into timber or pre-stressed concrete sleepers (known as ties in North America), with crushed stone ballast placed beneath and around the sleepers. Most modern railroads with heavy traffic use continuously welded rails that are attached to

4556-541: Was the Wollaton Wagonway , built in 1603 between Wollaton and Strelley in Nottinghamshire. It used wooden rails and was the first of around 50 wooden-railed tramways built over the next 164 years. These early wooden tramways typically used rails of oak or beech, attached to wooden sleepers with iron or wooden nails. Gravel or small stones were packed around the sleepers to hold them in place and provide

4624-505: Was used in Germany in 1924. and has become common on main lines since the 1950s. The preferred process of flash butt welding involves an automated track-laying machine running a strong electric current through the touching ends of two unjoined rails. The ends become white hot due to electrical resistance and are then pressed together forming a strong weld. Thermite welding is used to repair or splice together existing CWR segments. This

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