AGARTALA, June 25 - A long period of wait ended on Sunday night as two railway engines and a compartment rolled into the newly-built Sabroom Railway Station in South Tripura district on a trial run.
This will be followed by inspection of the railway tracks by engineers of railway safety on June 29. Normal plying of railway carriages is likely to commence from next month.
The new service is expected to be formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a date to be fixed by the PMO and the State Government on mutual consent.
Railway sources said that works on the 114.2-km railway tracks between Sabroom and Agartala commenced in 2010, and the target for completion of the works was March, 2020. But due to the hard work put in by the Railway authorities, the tracks have been built in nine months, much ahead of the schedule.
While constructing the tracks, the Railway agency confronted major problems in securing clearance from the Ministry of Forest and Environment and building a 700-metre-long tunnel at Jolaibari, which is also the longest in the State.
There are 40 long bridges on the tracks between Agartala and Sabroom, while there are 13 bridges on the 39-km tracks between Belonia and Sabroom.
The distance from the Sabroom Railway Station to the Chittagong port in Bangladesh is 76 km and if Tripura emerges in future as the gateway to the North East from Southeast Asia, Sabroom will turn into a place of importance. This will also become a major trade and commerce hub across the Feni river over which a bridge is under construction.
The State saw the first rail connectivity in 1964 when a skeletal train service connecting Dharmanagar and Silchar was launched. The 1980s saw the revival of the planned effort to have the State connected by railway and finally, on October 2, 2008, a proper railway service was introduced in the State capital.
The progress in extension of the railway service has been significant since the NDA Government came to power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.
