45-minutes train ride from Vadodara to Statue of Unity

VADODARA: Soon one will be able to reach world’s tallest statue – the Statue of Unity (SoU) – from Vadodara in 45 minutes.

Indian Railways (IR) is eager to finish the project of providing direct train connectivity for tourists visiting the 182-metre tall statue by November this year.
“Prime Minister’s office is directly monitoring the progress of the project while the railway minister gets regular updates every month through video conferencing,” Devender Kumar, divisional railway manager of Vadodara railway division said on Friday.
Kumar said that the internal target to finish the project, which includes includes achieving train speed of 130 km per hour, was November this year.
“There is already a line from Vadodara to Dabhoi. The train speed on this 30 km section is 75 km per hour which will be first increased to 110 km per hour and later taken to 130 km per hour,” he said.
The railway station at Kevadiya colony whose foundation stone was laid by President Ram Nath Kovind in December 2018 is being constructed at a cost of Rs 20 crore.
He said that work on the ground has re-started after migrant labourers, who had left for their home state, returned.
Sources said that the biggest challenge for the railways is to lay the new rail line between Chandod and Kevadiya.