Katra-Srinagar Vande Bharat Train: Northern Railway announces train timings; check fare, route and other key details

Northern Railway on Friday (January 3) announced Vande Bharat train schedules for the Katra-Srinagar route, which is slated to open after January 20. The train will run between Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra (SVDK) and Srinagar railway station. It will be maintained and operated by Northern Railway (NR) zone.

The Vande Bharat Express train is scheduled to depart Katra at 8.10 AM and arrive in Srinagar at 11.20 AM. 

Mail Express will travel from Katra twice daily: at 9.50 AM and arrive in Srinagar at 1.10 PM, and at 3 PM and arrive at 6.20 PM.

The Mail Express train departs from Srinagar at 8.55 AM and arrives in Katra at 12.05 PM. The second run will begin at 3:10 p.m. and arrive in Katra around 6:30 PM.

Vande Bharat will depart from Srinagar at 12.45 PM and arrive in Katra at 3.55 PM.

The Vande Bharat train will start a 7 PM from Delhi and arrive in Srinagar at 8 AM. The Katra-Srinagar link of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Batamulla Rail Link (USBRL) was the most ambitious and difficult link of this project.

Technically, this rail link is seen as a marvel of engineering with very few parallels anywhere else in the world. It involves some of the most challenging portions, including the bridge over the Chenab River in Ramban district, which is higher than the Eiffel Tower of Paris.

The Chenab Rail Bridge is a steel and concrete arch bridge carrying a single-track railway line, located between Bakkal and Kauri in the Reasi district of the Jammu division.

The bridge spans the Chenab River at a height of 359 m (1,178 ft) above the river, making it the World's highest rail bridge and the World's highest arch bridge.

The bridge was fully completed and was inaugurated in August 2022. It is built between the Sangaldan and the Reasi Railway stations.

USBRL is a dream come true for millions of people living in the landlocked Valley. It will give a quantum leap to tourism, trade, horticulture, and education and also change the very concept of travel to Kashmir Valley.

With inputs from agencies