Air travellers flying over Chenab bridge eager to click photos after pilots make special announcement

The world’s highest railway bridge on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, has become a fascination for air travellers flying over Srinagar.

According to a press statement released by the railway ministry, flight pilots are announcing while flying over the engineering marvel, while passengers are showing eagerness to capture photographs of the Chenab Bridge.

“The Chenab Bridge draws admiration from every altitude, where pride rises from the earth and echoes through the clouds,” Dilip Kumar, Executive Director, Information and Publicity, Railway Board, said on Sunday.

“These days, every flight that passes over the majestic valleys of Jammu and Kashmir witnesses a truly special moment. As the aircraft approaches the Chenab valley, the pilot’s voice echoes through the cabin: ‘Below you is the world’s tallest railway-arch bridge, the Chenab Bridge’,” he added.

Passengers rush to the windows with their mobile phones the moment the announcement is made. They start recording videos and clicking pictures of this historic bridge.

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“A wave of pride sweeps through the cabin — passengers clap, smile and share words of admiration for the brilliance of Indian engineering,” the press note said.Days after its formal inauguration, even on land, the enthusiasm is equally contagious, it added.Railway officials stated that locals from nearby villages and mountainous regions are seen taking photographs and recording videos of the bridge from different angles.

“Some are live-streaming the moment, while others are sharing it instantly across Instagram and Facebook,” an official said.

“It is a historic moment where India carved through the Himalayas to script an engineering triumph,” Kumar said.

Part of the ambitious Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project, the Chenab Bridge is the highest railway-arch bridge in the world.

Soaring 359 metres above the riverbed, it spans the Chenab river near the Salal dam and stretches a total length of 1,315 metres. Its main steel arch alone measures 467 metres and is built to withstand wind speeds up to 266 kilometres per hour. The bridge rises 35 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower and stands nearly five times taller than the Qutub Minar.

For the first time in its history, the Indian Railways deployed a cutting-edge cable-crane system, featuring two massive cable cars and pylons over 100 metres tall, to bridge the 915-metre-wide gap.

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