An Engineering Marvel, Decades in the Making: A Rail Line to Kashmir

After decades of highly complex engineering work and billions of dollars in investment, India has finally connected the Himalayan region of Kashmir by rail to the rest of the country.

The train link, which was officially inaugurated on Friday, fulfilled a dream dating back to the British colonial era. Indian officials called it a transformative leap for the restive region after overcoming physically and politically treacherous terrain to build the railway. But many Kashmiris see the project as much an effort to entrench the central government’s control over Kashmir.

The formal opening of the rail connection had been repeatedly delayed, most recently because of a terrorist attack in late April on the Indian-administered side of Kashmir, which set off days of deadly conflict between India and Pakistan.

“This shows that our resolve is as big as the dream for India’s development,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after inaugurating the rail line.

The new 170-mile line, known as the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link, was built at a cost of about $4.4 billion through some of the world’s most breathtaking landscapes. It includes one of the world’s tallest railway bridges and a nearly seven-mile-long tunnel through a mountain range.