USBRL Project: Work in progress! The Konkan Railway Corporation Limited is currently working on one of the most challenging Indian Railways projects, Udhampur – Srinagar – Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) Project. The USBRL project, which is being said to be a phenomenal engineering project is crucial for the development of Jammu and Kashmir. According to the Railway Ministry, the Tunnel T2 as the main tunnel of the USBRL project is over 5 kilometres long (5092 metres) and is accompanied by a parallel escape tunnel. During construction of this tunnel, several challenges were faced by the team of engineers and workers. The over burden of the tunnel ranges from 7 metres near the portal to 1.20 kilometres at the centre of the tunnel.Some of the few methods that were used during such challenging construction were the new Austrian tunneling method, which consists of a primary flexible support system and final concrete lining with a waterproofing membrane. The tunnel seismic prediction method was used to predict the strata availability of water borne zones and fracture zones well ahead of the tunnel face for a length of 100 metres. During excavation, high hindrances of water were encountered. These challenges were tackled by adopting new innovative methods like pipe proofing, chemical grouting method and multi drift method. The breakthrough of escape tunnel was achieved on 21 March 2020 and breakthrough of the main tunnel was achieved on 3 August 2020, the ministry said.
The USBRL project of Indian Railways is a National Project to provide rail connectivity to Kashmir valley. The Konkan Railway Corporation Limited has been assigned a part of this USBRL project from Katra – Dharam (km 30.00 to km 73.785) and (km 91 to km 100.868) for execution. The project comprises of 46.1 km (86 per cent) of route in tunnels, 5 km (9 per cent) of route on bridges and the rest of the 5 per cent of route in cuttings and embankments.
