Finally, the much awaited lohardaga-Tori Railway line will be inaugurated on-line tomorrow by Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu from Rail Bhawan in New Delhi while Chief Minister Raghubar Das along with other dignitaries will be present to flag off a train from Ranchi railway station.
A Railway official said that this new rail line will reduce the distance between Ranchi and Delhi via lohardaga – Tori by 106 km and curtail the travel time by at least 3 hours.
“The inauguration will be done by the Railway Minister at 12 in the noon from Rail Bhawan on Thursday but the programme will start here at 11 am. It will be a great relief for the people going to Delhi via Daltonganj as it will directly reduce the journey time by at least 3 hours,” said Senior DCM Neeraj Kumar. The lohardaga-Tori link would ultimately join the existing Daltonganj-Delhi main line, thus reducing the journey time between Ranchi and Delhi by about 3 hours, he added.
“People going to Delhi will be able to save both money and time after this line gets started,” Kumar added. Ranchi-New Delhi Rajdhani, however, will not run on this route as of now as electrification work is yet to be done on it, he added.
Sources said that Allahabad division has to do the electrification work on this route which is expected to be completed in the next 2-3 years.
Kumar further added that earlier it took 5 hours to reach Tori via Barkakana, now it will take only two hours to reach Tori via Barkichampi. The 30 km lohardaga-Tori project involving Rs 580 crore will reduce 106 km distance between Ranchi and Delhi via lohardaga - Tori and curtail three hours of travel time.
The lohardaga-Tori stretch was scheduled to be completed by 2009-10 but repeated hurdles put up by Maoists slowed down the progress of work. Much of the delay has been due to rebel activities in the area as at least on three occasions the Maoists abducted the men engaged in laying tracks on the Barkichampi - Tori route.
At present, the distance between Ranchi and Delhi via Muri-Barkakana-Tori is about 1,300 km. The new route will enable trains from Ranchi to reach Tori via lohardaga and then take the Daltonganj-Delhi route.
Several bridges and culverts have been constructed on this line, including three big ones out of which bridge number 27 between Boda and Tori stations is the tallest in Jharkhand having a height of 42 meters from the ground. Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) personnel have also been deputed on both sides for safety reasons.