Sikkim’s rail link sees breakthrough with tunnel T-04 completion

A significant milestone has been achieved in the Sivok to Rangpo new rail link project under the Darjeeling district. The 3948-meter-long tunnel T-04 has achieved a breakthrough on May 8, 2024. With this breakthrough, mining activities have been completed in all the tunnels of the project.

The tunnel T-04 is one of the 14 tunnels under the project. The main tunnel of T-04 is 3948 meters long, along with an evacuation tunnel of 599 meters situated near the Hanuman Jhora. The tunnels are passing through the vulnerable and challenging geological and seismic conditions of the Younger Himalayas. To counter the vulnerability of the groundmass, the latest and most sophisticated tunnelling technology, the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM), has been used in this project.

The 13.13 km lining of the tunnel has been completed to date. The lining work is in progress in the tunnels T-02, T-03, T-05, T-06, T-07, T-10, T-11, and T-12. The total length of the rail line from Sivok to Rangpo is about 45 km. This rail network will provide alternate and stable connectivity to the state of Sikkim once it is completed. The state of Sikkim will be connected to railways for the first time once this project is finished.