Freight corridor blasts its way to another milestone

One of the two tunnels on the western ghats is 430 metres long

At 12:40 pm on Tuesday, a series of deafening blasts on the western ghats near Virar paved the way for a new chapter of Indian railways, helping it achieve the final "tunnel breakthroughs" for the dedicated freight corridor between Mumbai and north India. The corridor promises to ferry heavy haul trains independent of existing rail corridors.

"There are three tunnels on the WDFC [western dedicated freight corridor], one in the Aravali range and the other two on the western ghats. With the breakthrough today, the boring of all three tunnels can be said to be complete. This is a major milestone," said Rajeev Tyagi, WDFC's chief project manager.

While one tunnel on the western ghats is 430 metres long, the other runs for 320 metres. Both have a height and breadth of 8-10 metres. The next challenging task on the corridor is the launching of girders over the Ulhas river, said officials.

Flames from the blast seen in one of the tunnels on Tuesday

Once complete, the western dedicated freight corridor will provide uninterrupted goods movement from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port or JNPT to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh. Its eastern peer will run from Sanehwal near Ludhiana to Dankuni in West Bengal.

These two corridors are being built because the existing trunk routes of Howrah-Delhi and Mumbai-Delhi are highly saturated, and primarily dominated by passenger service. Officials said freight traffic in these sectors is also important due to the eastern coal belt of Sonnagar-Garhwa Road-Patratu area, thermal plants in the north and ports and container hubs of Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The nearly Rs 51,000-crore western corridor is 1,504 km long and will have a double-line electric track. It will pass through Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Phulera and Rewari.