UPDATE: WHY WERE THE OTHER TWO VIDEO CLIPS OF THE KASHMIR RAIL LINK PROJECT ALSO REMOVED FROM THE INTERNET?

Admin

How the proposed alignment eliminated the stretches prone to the geohazards where landslides have already occurred and massive slope stabilization works are being carried out

Alok Kumar Verma, IRSE (Retd.)

The two clips were of new construction adits at Tunnel No. 14 and 15, which have length of 6284 m and 9829 m. Adits are usually provided in long tunnels > 10 km as these are quite costly.

One member on this forum said that though just about 2.6 km and 2 km tunneling is remaining in Tunnel 14 and 15 respectively yet new adits have been opened in both these tunnels.

Typically adits cost about INR 200 to 600 crore and may also require long access roads also.

To explain that not tunnels but the large and mega bridges, and cuttings are on the critical path for construction, I said that because most tunnels are at shallow depth (200 m to 1000 m) below the slopes, Railway has resorted to building multiple adits even in relatively short tunnels.

Relevant extracts of the posts are already given above.

After I made my post on 03/03/2021 on Twitter about how this project has become a great show like a circus while in reality construction is in a very bad shape, an animated discussion ensued on WhatsApp group of senior Indian Railway retired and serving officers.

One officer said that the Udhampur Shrinagar Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project was salvaged to an extent because of me. He was referring to the review of the review of alignment in 2008-10, when despite scuttling about 93 km of total 125 km alignment was changed to remove [PARTIALLY] the deficiencies that I had pointed out in my proposal for change of alignment.

It was also discussed how the alignment I proposed eliminated the stretches prone to the geohazards where landslides have already occurred and massive slope stabilization works are being carried out.

Some extracts of this animated discussion on the WhatsApp group are given here. Green background appears on my posts and white for the other participants.

BEFORE IT IS ALSO REMOVED, see in the link below video of construction of the access road to the Construction Adit of the above mentioned Tunnel No. 14.

It is a particularly landslide prone area. Anyone can see the massive ecological cost of making this access road.

The voice-over in fact admits that many landslides occurred during construction of the road.

Construction of Tunnel No. 14 is posing serious problems because it is also aligned alng a major fault line (Basindadhar Fault).

Here are some photos of the access road to the Adit of Tunnel No 14:

#IndianRailways #Kashmir_rail_link #Chenab_Rail_Bridge #Ruling_Gradient #LEH_LADAKH_LINE #Lines_in_Himalayas #Himalayan_Geology #Himalayas #railwayboard #ManipurRailLink #MizoramRailLink #SikkimRailLink