Termed as the project of national importance, India’s longest train tunnel Pir Panjal (or T-80) is the only broad gauge mountain railway in the country that stretches through the Pir Panjal mountain range between Quazigund and Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir.
The 11.2km long tunnel is a part of the 272km Udhampur – Srinagar – Baramulla rail link project undertaken by the Northern Railways. It operates 440m below the existing Jawahar Tunnel, as it is inoperable in winter due to heavy snowfall in the region.In 2013, the trial run of the country’s longest railway tunnel was conducted smoothly, when a train covered the 11 km distance in 20 minutes. It took 30 minutes to cover the entire distance of 17.5 km from Qazigund to Banihal.
It is important to note that the Banihal and Qazigund region is one of the most treacherous stretches in the entire Kashmir rail network project.
Udhampur Srinagar Baramulla Rail Link
Sanctioned in 1994-95, the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link (USBRL) project (272 km) has a Rs 37,012 crore sanctioned budget, against which, expenditure of Rs 26,786 crore has been incurred up to March 2022.Of the 272 km length of the USBRL project, the length of 161 Km has already been commissioned, and work on the remaining stretch of the Katra-Banihal section of 111 Km is underway.
As of March 2023, 19 (nineteen) Passenger Special train services are running in the Baramula-Badgam-Banihal section of the USBRL Project. Moreover, the introduction of new train services or extension of existing train services is an ongoing process over Indian Railways subject to traffic demand, operational feasibility and availability of rolling stock.