Indian Railways is all set to construct a new rail station and that too inside a tunnel which is close to the Sino-India border, and is at the Bilaspur-Manali-Leh line, at an approximate height of 3000 metres. Though, there are many metro stations present in Delhi as well as other cities that were constructed underground along with inside the tunnels, but this rail station – Keylong station based in Himachal Pradesh, when is going to be completed, will be counted among the first station that is built under a tunnel, as per Indian Railways department. Keylong is the administrative centre of both Spiti and Lahaul district in Himachal Pradesh, and is situated at an approximate distance of 26 km North to Manali and at about 120 km distance from the Indo – Tibetan border. As per the initial stats and record of the location survey, this Keylong station under the tunnel project is going to cover about 74 tunnels, 396 minor bridges, 124 major bridges, as per the report PTI.
In accord to the chief engineer of Northern Railways Construction, Dr. Gupta stated that according to the first phase of the survey, this rail station will be going to be inside a tunnel. The station will be constructed inside a 27 km long tunnel stretch at a height of 3000 metres. The route will link to all the major locations lying in between Leh and Bilaspur including Mandi, Manali, Sundernagar, Keylong and other towns of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. It is going to definitely add up to the expectations and desires of all travellers who wish to travel to Leh from Delhi as once it is completed, the stretch will simply half up the time to travel in between Leh and the national capital keeping it down from simply 40 hours to 20 hours.
The Keylong rail station holds vital importance and significance especially due to its close proximity to Sino India order as well as the facilitation and easiness in the movement of goods along with the personnel at the frontier areas. Though, Keylong station is going to be the first of its own kind, but after its completion and final surveys that were going to be conducted over the route, there are chances that many more could be constructed over the route in the coming time. The final location survey is expected to be finished in 30 months and afterwards a detailed rail project report will be devised and finalized.