Indian Railways extends Srinagar Vande Bharat Train to Jammu station

“The yard remodeling work was crucial for the operation of Vande Bharat trains from Jammu Tawi station. Although the entire station redevelopment is not yet fully completed, the infrastructure required for the Vande Bharat service has been prepared keeping passengers’ convenience in mind. At present, it takes around 8 hours to travel from Jammu to Srinagar. With the Vande Bharat train, this journey will be completed in approximately 4 hours and 50 minutes. This will become operational from the station from March 1,” said Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay, Chief Public Relations Officer, Northern Railway.

The train will also stop at Bajalta and Ramnagar stations as well apart from existing stops such as Sri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra, Reasi, Banihal and Srinagar.

Earlier, it was reported that for security reasons the trains coming or going to Srinagar were subjected to further checks and had to be terminated at the Katra. This had been objected to by political leaders in Kashmir, who said it failed the whole idea of a train to the Valley.

The 272-km Udhampur–Srinagar–Baramula Rail Link (USBRL) or Kashmir line became fully operational on June 6, 2025, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated 63-km Katra-Sangaldan section of USBRL, marking the completion of a project to link Kashmir to the rest of the country, which was first initiated 42 years ago.

While different stretches of the project were made operational earlier in phases, the trickiest one, 111-km Katra-Banihal section, was the most difficult one. This includes India’s longest operational transportation tunnel, T-50, running to 12.77 km; the world’s highest railway arch bridge at 359 metres above the sea floor (the Chenab Bridge); and the first cable-stayed bridge of the Railways (the Anji Bridge).

The idea to connect Kashmir with a railway line between Jammu and Srinagar was first conceived by Maharaja Pratap Singh in 1898. In 1905, he approved the construction of a narrow 762-mm gauge railway line via Reasi.

The then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was later connected to the rail grid with a line between Jammu and Sialkot. But with the latter going to Pakistan following Partition, J&K got disconnected to the rest of India via train. While Jammu eventually got a train, it was in 1983 that the then Indira Gandhi-led Congress government laid the foundation stone for a Udhampur-Srinagar railway line.

However, work on the project only gained momentum after the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA government declared it a national project in 2002.