The Konkan Railway – Facts and Figures
The Konkan Railway is a 738 km long single line non-electrified Broad Gauge Railway with design speed is for 160 kilometers/hour, though no trains run that fast on this line. The fastest train on the line is the H.Nizamuddin – Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani Express which touches 110 kmph on some stretches. The main locomotives doing duty on the line are the WDP4, the WDG4, WDM3A, WDM3D, WDP3A, the WDM2 and its variants. The line has 59 stations with a depot at Verna and yards at Madgaon. It has 91 tunnels totaling 83 kilometers with the longest tunnel being the Karbude tunnel at 5.6 kilometers long. It has 1998 bridges (179 major bridges and 1819 minor bridges)...
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spanning rivers, streams and other waterbodies including the Mandovi, Zuari and Sharavati rivers. The bridge across the Sharavati is also the Konkan’s longest at 2085.4 m. The Konkan Railway also boasts of the 64 meter tall Panval Nadi Viaduct near Ratnagiri, the second highest bridge in Asia, a visible example of the ingenuity of the line and the dedication of the builders. It connects two hills and has 12 spans and10 pillars, 6 of which are taller than the Qutub Minar! If you want comparisons, here is one of he pillars as seen where it meets the ground. The train leaves a tunnel, runs straight onto the viaduct which then runs right into the next tunnel! The KR route closely follows the NH-17 and the alignment seems to be chosen to be near the highway at all times. No point on the Konkan Railway track is more than 22 kilometers away from the highway, and on an average the line is within two to five kilometers of the highway. It crosses the highway at numerous points. (The NH-17 is no less a driver’s delight. Watch out for those trucks and Volvos though)
The track passes though a geologically sensitive region with heavy rainfall and frequent landslides, floods etc, so disruptions in service during the monsoons are commonplace even with all the technologically superior safety checks in place. In fact, KR is the only railways in India with a “monsoon timetable” for the monsoon months when trains are run at reduced speed and possibly during the daytime with increased caution due to the volatile nature of the terrain. Sadly, there have been two fatal accidents on the line, once in 2003 when a holiday special derailed after a landslide fell on it killing 51 and once in 2004 when the Matsyagandha Express derailed after hitting boulders which fell on the track killing 14. Every year during monsoons some issue happens on the line and services get suspended with trains getting rerouted.