Spanning a route kilometer of 7,197 with a running track of 9,310 km, Northern Railway is the largest zone on Indian Railways. A veritable back — bone of Indian Railways, Northern Railway operates about 1,711 trains which include Mail/Express trains, Passenger, DEMU, MEMU and EMU trains besides Rail Car coaches on Kalka — Shimla rail sections. The Railway carries more than 600 million passengers each year.
The overhead electric wires are also switched off, this is called the “Traffic Block”. During a traffic block there is no running of trains in both directions. Consequently the trains are cancelled, short terminated or run via a diverted route. The information regarding the traffic block and the disruption of rail traffic is given to the public well in advance through the electronic and print media, so as to not cause any inconvenience.Northern Railway has achieved a unique feat of launching three bridges within a time duration of less than six hours on September 29.
Two of them are subways and one road over bridge located in between Babugarh — Kuchesar, Kankather — Garhmukteshwar and near Pilakhuwa in Ghaziabad — Moradabad section. Though the traffic block was for seven hours duration, however, all the three tasks were completed within five hours thirty minutes in this double line section. The coordinated working of all three sites spaced twenty to thirty kilometer apart has made this achievement possible.
The concrete box subways, each having eleven segments and 4.0m x 4.0m size would thus replace two manned level crossing No. 49 and No. 63 in the section.