‘Bogibeel Bridge Will Outlive Generations’: India’s Longest Rail Road Bridge Has A Lifespan Of Over 120 Years

India’s longest rail-cum-road which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (25 December) is said to have a lifespan of over 120 years, officials say.

The Bogibeel Bridge on Brahmaputra river is 4.9 km long and is the only bridge in India that is fully welded, which will save a lot of cost on maintenance. The project is said to have cost the exchequer Rs 5,900 crore, chief engineer Mohinder Singh told Hindustan Times.

The time spent on travelling between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh will be shortened by four hours. The Delhi to Dibrugarh train-travel time will also be cut short by three hours. The bridge was a brainchild of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. On the bridge lies a two-line railway track and a three-lane road on the two decks.

The floods in Brahmaputra delayed the work a bit. Hindustan Times quoted Singh as saying, “Eighty-thousand tonnes of steel plates were delivered for the project via a combination of rail and road transport, while a 1,000-tonne hydraulic jack and strand jacks linked with the substructures were used for moving steel truss over the pillars.”