Trial run held on Akhaura-Agartala railway

The trial run of a train on the newly constructed Akhaura-Agartala dual gauge railway track was successfully conducted today.

The container train started its journey at 12:20pm from Gangagar in Akhaura, Brahmanbaria and successfully completed the 20-minute journey to Shivnagar on the Indian border on Thursday (14 September). 

Project officials said that the railway would be inaugurated soon as the trial train run was successful.

During the trial run, the train moved at a speed of 30 kilometres per hour.

Project director of the Bangladesh section of the Akhaura-Agartala dual gauge railway, Abu Zafar Mia said that the trial run has been completed successfully.

"Now the railway is ready for inauguration. However, the opening date is yet to be decided. The opening of the railway will expand trade between India and Bangladesh," he added.

Locomaster Saju Kumar Das, who was excited to run a train on an international route for the first time, said, "I operated a train on the Dhaka-Chattogram route. On the way, I used to see the construction work of the Akhaura-Agartala railway. I am very happy to have the responsibility of operating the train on this rail line. It seems like a dream to me." 

According to the project officials, in July 2018, the Indian contractor Texmeco Rail and Engineering Limited started the construction of the Akhaura-Agartala railway. The Bangladesh part of the 12.24 km long railway is 6.78 km. It took more than five years to complete the project due to various crises including the Coronavirus pandemic..

Sarat Sharma, country manager of Texmeco Rail and Engineering Limited, said 98% of the project has been completed.

"Now the finishing work of the Customs and Immigration building is going on. But the railway is fully prepared for the inauguration. Trains can run at a speed of 79 km on this railway. However, since the curve is high, the train may not run at full speed," he added.