A new dawn of connectivity

Ashraful Islam Joy & Sirajul Islam Shishir:

After a long wait and a successful trial run, passenger trains have started operating on the newly constructed Jamuna Railway Bridge, a month ahead of its official inauguration. This marks the end of train operations on the Bangabandhu Bridge.

On Wednesday, the Silk City Express Train from Rajshahi crossed the bridge at 10:00 am after departing at 7:00am. Other scheduled trains are expected to follow soon.

Although the railway bridge has two tracks, initially, trains will run on a single track in both directions.

Bangladesh Railway’s Additional Director General (Infrastructure), Al Fattah Mohammad Masudur Rahman, said the country’s longest railway bridge, measuring 4.8 kilometers, will be formally inaugurated on March 18. From that day, both tracks will be operational. Until then, trains will use the north track on the right side when heading from Dhaka.

With the launch of the new railway bridge, train operations on the Bangabandhu Bridge have ceased from Wednesday, confirmed the project director.

Rail connectivity between Dhaka and the northern and northwestern regions was established in 1998 with the opening of the bridge over the Jamuna River. However, cracks appeared in the bridge in 2008, leading to a reduction in train speed.

Currently, about 38 trains cross the bridge daily at a speed of 20 km/h. To resolve this issue, a separate railway bridge upstream on the Jamuna River was planned on March 3, 2020.

The government approved the construction of the 4.80-kilometer-long dual-gauge, double-track railway bridge parallel to the Bangabandhu Multipurpose Bridge. On November 29, 2020, then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation stone for the bridge, and piling work for the bridge’s pillars began in March 2021.

Initially, the project cost was set at Tk 9,734.07 crore, but it later increased to Tk 16,780.96 crore. Of the total cost, 27.60% was financed from domestic sources, while 72.40% was provided as a loan by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Japanese companies OTG and IHI are implementing the construction of this major railway bridge.

According to railway officials, a total of 30.73 kilometers of railway lines, including 7.667 kilometers of approach embankments, loops, and sidings, have been constructed for this dual-gauge, double-track bridge parallel to the Bangabandhu Bridge.

Initially named Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Railway Bridge, the structure was renamed Jamuna Railway Bridge in December last year after the interim government took office.