A Century-Long Rail Dream Comes True: From Dogra Vision to Vande Bharat

(Kashmir Rechords Exclusive)

 

It was a dream that once travelled in whispers through the stone-courtyards of Dogra Palaces and echoed in the steam whistles of British-era trains that never reached the Valley. On June 6, 2025, that dream finally found its tracks—gleaming, electric and resounding with a future long awaited.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the Vande Bharat Express from Katra to Srinagar, a journey that now takes just three hours but has taken over 125 years to arrive!

A Dream Born in 1898

 

The first vision of a railway linking Jammu to Kashmir wasn’t conceived in a Ministry or modern think tank—it came from Maharaja Pratap Singh of the Dogra dynasty in 1898. Deeply aware of the need to bind the geographically and culturally distinct regions of his Princely State, the Maharaja urged British engineers to explore the feasibility of a rail line connecting the temperate Valley with the warmer plains of Jammu.

But technical limitations and budgetary constraints derailed the idea before it could move beyond paper. It would remain an unfulfilled royal dream—until June 2025!

When Trains Stopped at Sialkot

 

Back then, the rail tracks ran only as far as Sialkot, with a narrow branch reaching Jammu city from Suchetgarh. The line opened for service in 1890. Passengers heading to Kashmir had to disembark at Jammu and take buses or tonga carriages through the treacherous mountain roads to Srinagar. Passengers would also opt for alternative routes originating from cities that now lie within the borders of Pakistan.

Archival records available with Kashmir Rechords tell us that the Railway Department, even then, saw Kashmir’s tourism potential. Travel packages—detailed in brochures from firms like M/s N.D. Radha Krishan & Sons—offered rail-road connections to the Valley, listing detailed fares in Hindi and Urdu. In a time when first-class fare from Delhi to Jammu was barely Rs. 8, such trips were still considered a luxury reserved for the elite or for pilgrims seeking the serenity of Kashmir’s shrines.

 

Today, the AC Chair Car on Vande Bharat is priced at Rs 660, but the journey—one which once took a lifetime of waiting—is finally real.

Lost Tracks, Forgotten Stations

 

After 1947, partition severed the Sialkot-Jammu rail line, disconnecting the State from the northern-western railway grid with its headquarters at Lahore. It wasn’t until 1972 that Jammu was reconnected—this time through a new line extending from Pathankot. The remnants of the original colonial-era station at Bikram Chowk in Jammu stood for decades before giving way to Kala Kendra. The old station at R.S. Pura still exists—silent, crumbling, a memory in brick and mortar.

Engineering the Impossible

 

If the past was about deferred dreams, the present is a celebration of perseverance and prowess. The 272-kilometer Udhampur–Srinagar–Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL), especially the Katra-Banihal stretch, is a marvel of modern engineering.

Threading through 36 tunnels and crossing 943 bridges—including the world’s tallest railway arch, the Chenab Bridge in Reasi—the train journey reads like an epic penned by engineers. The Anji Khad Bridge, India’s first cable-stayed railway bridge, and the ballastless track technology inside tunnels bear testimony to how the impossible was reimagined.

And now, Vande Bharat Express glides over valleys and through snow tunnels, equipped with heated windshields and seismic dampers—prepared for Himalayan winters and the weight of history.

A New Chapter for Jammu & Kashmir

As of now, the Vande Bharat runs six days a week between Katra and Srinagar, stopping at Banihal. Full connectivity to Jammu is on the horizon, once yard expansions are completed. From there, Delhi and the rest of India feel not just metaphorically—but physically—closer than ever before.

A long-haul Vande Bharat with sleeper coaches is in the works. When it arrives, perhaps it will carry the same spirit of discovery that once stirred tourists in the 1930s, lured by posters of houseboats and pine trees.

This rail line doesn’t just connect regions—it binds memories, restores lost pathways, and fulfills a promise made across centuries. As the Vande Bharat glides past snow-capped peaks and forgotten stations, it carries not just passengers—but the pride of a people who waited more than a hundred years for seeing Jammu region getting connected to Valley by train.

This is not just a story of steel and stone. It’s about generations who waited. Grandparents who once told their grandchildren that a train might one day chug its way into the Valley from Jammu region. It’s about porters, schoolchildren and shopkeepers who peered down the slopes of Banihal hoping to catch a glimpse of progress.

And it’s for the believers—like the Dogra rulers, whose dream lives again, not in sketches or speeches, but in the rhythmic hum of a train.