National Highways and Industrial Development Corporation (NHIDCL) looking into the options to use the Zojila tunnel both as a railway tunnel and road tunnel.

The latest tender for the 14.1km long Zojila Tunnel construction has been won by Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. (MEIL) and the construction of the tunnel will start soon. Zojila tunnel is strategically very important tunnel in in Jammu Kashmir-Ladakh in Himalayan region.

As the first option, NHIDCL wants to lay also railway tracks in the road tunnel for rare train traffic. They plan to close the tunnel to road vehicle traffic for half an hour, should a train needs to use the tunnel. As a second option, NHIDCL will also look at the construction of another parallel tunnel for railway use. Here the assumption is, after the construction of the first tunnel, building the second one will be more straightforward because of the gained knowledge about the local geology. Interestingly a second tunnel was already planned, albeit as an escape (safety) tunnel but it has been cancelled out during cost cutting.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/govt-mulls-railway-line-along-zojila-tunnel-in-jk/articleshow/78645893.cms