Rail Quiz no 3

Today we move to the railways of Pakistan.

This station serves a small city in Khyber-Pakhtunwa (formerly NWFP). Today the city may be famous for a leading cricketer who was born there:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-pakistan-2016/content/current/player/43652.html

Also see this article: http://www.radiotnn.com/mardan-railway-stations-reopening-not-possible-in-near-future/

The station has not seen any train traffic since 2007. But once it held an unusual record for the railways of South Asia. What was this record?

If you can’t think of the answer right away, read the above article again and also check its location on Google Maps etc. (No, this has nothing to do with Abbottabad and its most famous resident).

Souroshankha Maji got it right-Mardan was, for many years, the northern-most junction in South Asia. This will be apparent from the map of the “Pakistan Western Railway” which probably dates from the mid-60s, when the railway network was virtually at full strength. The closure of lines started some years ago, starting with the minor branch lines in Sind and the NG lines close to the Afghan borders.

(From “Couplings to the Khyber”, PSA Berridge, 1969)

(Note: the metre gauge lines are not shown distinctly in this map, though the narrow gauge lines are. At that time the MG lines ran from Hyderabad (or maybe Mirpur Khas) to Khokhropar, the Jamrao-Pithoro loop and Mirpur Khas to Nawabshah.)

As you can see, Durgai was then the northernmost station in South Asia. It did exist prior to partition, so it was the northernmost station in British India as well. The Mardan-Charsadda branch was built in the 1950s, making Mardan the northern-most junction in South Asia.

Since around 2000 the Nowshera-Durgai and Mardan-Charsadda branches have been closed-even though Mardan is the second largest town in Khyber-Pakhtunwa, ahead of better-known places such as Abbottabad. A study of the current Pakistan timetable shows that the branch from Attock City Jn to Basal Jn is still open, thus making Attock City Jn (formerly Campbellpur Jn) the northern-most junction in South Asia. Next would be Taxila Cantt Jn (formerly Taxila Jn) which still has a branch to Havelian.

Nowshera (formerly a junction) would appear to be the northern-most station in Pakistan today, considering that the Peshawar-Landi Kotal line has been closed for several years.

In the mean time Sopore (followed by the larger Baramulla) have become the northern-most stations in South Asia. However, the Kashmir valley line is not yet linked to the rest of the Indian Railways network, whose northernmost point remains at Katra, with the slightly larger town of Udhampur a little further south.

Udhampur was the terminus for several years, but the  station has rather primitive facilities compared to Katra’s showpiece station.

And this is the southern end of the Kashmir valley railway, close to the 11 km long Pir Panjal tunnel.

 

 

Banihal and its tunnels

This is the station at Banihal, a somewhat nondescript place but an important point on the way from Jammu to Kashmir. In the vicinity we have:

1. The longest railway tunnel in India, which is likely to remain the longest in the foreseeable future.
2. For the moment, the longest road tunnel in India though it is likely to lose this position some time in 2016, and
3. In a few years, a new road tunnel which will be among the longest in India. It will replace the existing road tunnel.

Let us take a closer look at these. The Pir Panjal rail tunnel was opened for traffic in 2013 and links Banihal with Qazigund (though there is a smaller station at Hillal Shahabad just north of the tunnel). This tunnel is 11.2 km long. The next longest rail tunnel is the Karbude tunnel on the Konkan line which is a mere 6.5 km long.

More about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pir_Panjal_Railway_Tunnel

It may be noted that the distance by rail between Banihal and Qazigund is 17 km as compared to 35 km by road.

If you travel by road, you would cross the Jawahar Tunnel which at 2.85 km is the longest road tunnel functioning in India at the time of writing. It was opened in 1956. More about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawahar_Tunnel

This map gives an idea of the distance saved by the rail tunnel. Its ends are marked by the little gold stars.

The long straight portion of road seen slightly to the right of centre marks the Jawahar tunnel.

However, that is not the end of the tunnel story for Banihal as a new road tunnel 8.45 km long is expected to be opened within a short time:

“New double road tunnel

Construction of a new 8.45 km (5.25 mi) long Banihal-Qazigund road tunnel started in 2011 to widen NH 1A to four lanes. It is a double tube tunnel consisting of two parallel tunnels – one for each direction of travel. Each tunnel is 7 metre wide tunnel and has two lanes of road. The two tunnels are interconnected by a passage every 500 metres for maintenance and emergency evacuation. The tunnel will have forced ventilation for extracting smoke and stale air and infusing fresh air. It will have state of the art monitoring and control systems for security.

The new tunnel’s average elevation at 1,790 m (5,870 ft) is 400 metre lower than the existing Jawahar tunnel‘s elevation and would reduce the road distance between Banihal and Qazigund by 16 km (9.9 mi). The new tunnel would also be less prone to snow avalanche as it will be at a lower elevation. The vehicles will have to pay toll tax to use the tunnel.

Most of the boring has been completed.”

This will probably be the third longest road tunnel in India, after the so called Patnitop bypass (9.2 km) in the Jammu region and the Rohtang tunnel (8.8 km) in Himachal Pradesh which are all likely to be functioning by 2017 if not earlier.