Gang Canal Construction Railway
Gang Canal Construction Tramways
The 70 mile(112km) long 'Gang Canal' in the Ganganagar District was built as part of the 'Sutlej Valley Project' between 1924 and 1928.The canal was lined with concrete and a number of tramways were used during its construction. The Kankar for the concrete was obtained from the quarries at Darbari [1].
- Darbari Quarries Tramway
There were 9 miles(14km) of 2ft/610mm narrow gauge(NG) hand worked tramway at the quarries used to transfer the kankar to the mainline loading site located on the Bikaner State Railway (BkSR) mainline Lalgarh Junction to Kolayat section. At the loading site the Kankar limestone was discharged by gravity into special MG wagons [1]
- Bikaner Canal Construction Railway
From the loading site the MG special wagons were made up into 28 wagon trains and taken on the Bikaner State Railway (BkSR) mainline to Sriganganger (now named Sri Ganganagar [2], a length of 199 miles(318km). Here it connected to a branch line specially built by BkSr and named the ‘Bikaner Canal Construction Railway’, a 89 mile(142km) MG line to Khai [1].
- Khai to Gang Canal Tramway
After the Kankar was unloaded at Khai it was taken to the screening plant by a 2ft/610mm narrow gauge(NG) tramway. The total of 5 miles(8km) of track linked the screening plant, lime kilns, sand and ballast storage and the concrete plant, all hand worked. A further 2ft/610mm NG tramway ran from the cement plant to the ‘Gang Canal’ works Khai [1].
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 “Industrial Railways and Locomotives of India and South Asia” compiled by Simon Darvill. Published by ‘The Industrial Railway Society’ 2013. ISBN 978 1 901556 82-7. Available at http://irsshop.co.uk/India. Reference: Entry RJ10 page ....
- ↑ Wikipedia “Sri Ganganer” ; Retrieved 25 May 2017