Staff Reporter:
Construction work for the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Railway Bridge is 86% complete, with rail tracks installed on 2.25 kilometres of the total 4.8-kilometre bridge – the largest railway project in Bangladesh.
The entire bridge, connecting Sirajganj with Tangail over the Jamuna River, has already been constructed on 50 pillars while only about 50% of the work for installing rail tracks on the bridge remains. The bridge is highly expected to be opened for public use in December.
The bridge would accommodate two separate lines of dual-gauge tracks as opposed to the earlier single track Bangabandhu Bridge opened in 1998.
The Bangabandhu Bridge allowed trains to travel at 20-kilometre per hour on a single track. As of October 2020, only 44 trains traversed the bridge every day on a single track while there were weight restrictions for cargo transport.
After the construction of the new Tk16,781 crore bridge, train speed would grow significantly to 120-km per hour, the number of trains would be at least 88 per day, two trains can run simultaneously and on opposite directions on two tracks, and heavy loads would be carried easily – bringing significant improvements to Dhaka-northwest transport facilities.
