Trial run of first train over Padma Bridge

Staff Reporter :
The trial run of the first ever train over the Padma Bridge conducted successfully on Tuesday.
The train crossed the bridge in 16 minutes from the Jajira point to the Mawa point between 2:48pm and 3:04pm.
The railways minister Nurul Islam Sujan inaugurated the trial run.
The minister said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would inaugurate train service on the Dhaka-Bhanga route through the Padma Bridge in September this year.
Several works of the route under the Padma Rail Link Project are going to be completed by August this year, he said.
The Bangladesh Railway has been setting up a 169-kilometre rail link since June 2022 between Dhaka and Jashore at a cost of Tk 39,246 crore, which is a fast-track project.
The rail track goes through the 6.15-kilometre long double-deck Padma Bridge connecting the capital Dhaka with the south-western part of the country.
The overall rail link project progress is 74 per cent till now, officials said.
Among the project’s four components, the Mawa-Bhanga portion is 91 per cent, Dhaka-Mawa portion is 72.5 per cent, and Bhanga-Jashore portion is 68 per cent completed.
As for the fourth component- among 100 passenger coaches 45 have been collected till now.
All 42.2 kilometres rail line of the Mawa-Bhanga portion is already constructed, 68 per cent works of the four stations were completed, all 13 major bridges are constructed, and out of four signaling stations works are ongoing for two stations.
The project is scheduled to be completed in June 2024 which started in January 2016.