Tuesday, October 1, 2019

The Sivok - Rangpo rail project.

The new Sivok - Rangpo rail project of the Indian Railways is gonna be a game changer. Travel from West Bengal to Sikkim will be undertaken in just two hours.

It's set to transform the heart of the Northeast like never before. The upcoming project promises an unimaginably breathtaking train journey, through the picturesque mountain terrains and forest reserves. The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) zone along with IRCON International Limited, has proposed to construct the 44.98 km long Sivok - Rangpo railway line, which will enable travelling between Sivok in West Bengal to Rangpo in Sikkim in just two hours.

The salient features of the route are:-

   (a) The rail line spans across a total length of 44.98 kms crossing as many as 19 bridges and 14
        tunnels.
   (b) The tunnels on the route cover a total length of 38.55 kms, with the longest tunnel covering
         5,270 metres and the smallest tunnel covers 538 metres.
   (c) Interestingly, these tunnels cover almost 85% of the total journey.
   (d) The journey will cover Sivok, Reang, Teesta Bazaar, Melli and Rangpo stations on its route.

The rail line will cut through mountains and valleys to connect Sikkim to the main Indian Railway network for the first time.


Tailpiece.

The day had begun on a bright, sunny note. I was pretty sure that Liju George and his team would come by to finish off the remaining work before we left for Thiruvananthapuram. But it was not to be. It stared pouring and soon it was a wet day. We wound up Raj Nivas, the caretaker helped me tuck the baggage into the boot and by about a few minutes past 12, we were off on our journey. Had pulled out money from the ATM to hand over Rs.3,500/- to apply manure for the rubber trees, now that the weeds have been removed.

Lunch was at Letha's house and we set of for Thiruvananthapuram by about a half past 1. The journey was fine, thankfully, with no pesky or irritating motorists and we reached my friend, Suresh Laxman's house at Jagathy by a half past 3. I could drop the ICICI cheque at the Sasthamangalam branch soon after.

Had spent quality time with Madhavan Nair sir - Sindhu's father - during which he reminisced about his professional life and there were a lot of interesting nuggets of information.

The six of us viz. Suresh-Sindhu, Vijayakumar-Anitha and Lekha and I met at Vijay's place to discuss about our journey, collect tickets and the foreign exchange, worked out for the journey. It was a nice and laid back evening.   

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