The expert team for the feasibility study & survey of China-Nepal Cross-Border Railway arrived today and welcomed by Charge d’affaires Wang Xin, important implementation of our leaders’ consensus and a solid step forward to turn Nepal from a land-locked to a land-linked country.
The Chinese technical team visiting Nepal includes six officials from the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute. They will be conducting feasibility study of the Kerung-Kathmandu railway which will be 72 kilometers long and survey of a proposed Nepal-China cross-border railway project under BRI.
As per reports in Nepali media, the Chinese side will carry out the feasibility under the Chinese grant that will cost around 180.47 million RMB or 3.5 billion Nepali rupees. It will reportedly take about 42 months to complete the feasibility study of the project.
The pre-feasibility study of the proposed railway line was carried out by the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute Group in 2018.
Officials at the Department of Railway and China Railway First Survey and Design Institute Group will hold a meeting today to ascertain the modality as well as other details on how to go forward to carry out the feasibility study among others.
The 2018’s pre-feasibility study, highlighted complicated geological terrain and laborious engineering workload that could become the most significant obstacles in building a cross-border railway line linking the Chinese border town of Kerung with Kathmandu.
Reports say that engineers would build ramps along the northern and southern slopes leading to Lake Paiku, near Kerung, to connect the tracks to the Kathmandu section.
In the Nepal-China cross-border railway line project, the section with the longest and most steep grade is up to 95 km long out of 121 km. The study stated that continuous use of air braking system will cause serious abrasion of the brake shoe, tire overheating, and other potential operational dangers in the rail.