India has completed the construction of the world’s tallest railway bridge — the Chenab Bridge — a milestone that underscores the country’s engineering capability and its push to upgrade critical infrastructure in challenging terrain.
Spanning the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir, the bridge rises to a height of 359 metres from the riverbed — making it taller than the Eiffel Tower (324 metres) and nearly five times the height of Qutab Minar (72 metres). The structure now surpasses the previous record held by a railway bridge over France’s Tarn River, where the tallest pillar measures 340 metres and where the running height is approximately 300 metres.
The Chenab Bridge features a central steel arch with a main span of 467 metres, supported by pylons on either side of the river valley. The entire bridge spans 1,315 metres and was constructed using 29,000 metric tonnes of structural steel, a volume rarely matched in Indian infrastructure projects.
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One of the most notable engineering achievements in the project is the construction of the arch using a specially designed cable crane system. This cable car system operates on 54mm-thick steel cables, laid across the river and anchored to 127-metre-high towers. This method allowed work to continue safely in one of the deepest gorges in the Himalayas.
The design also accounts for blast resistance — a unique feature in international railway bridge design — to ensure the safety and durability of the structure in high-risk scenarios.
The Chenab Bridge is part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project, which aims to connect the Kashmir Valley with the rest of India via an all-weather rail network. Once fully operational, the bridge will not only improve mobility and connectivity for civilians and tourists but also serve strategic purposes for defence and logistics in the border region.
Industry analysts see the Chenab Bridge as a flagship example of India’s ability to execute complex, high-altitude infrastructure with precision, resilience, and innovation.