Banihal-Qazigund Tunnel

The Banihal-Qazigund Tunnel — also called the Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel or simply T-80 in railway parlance — is an 11.215 km twin-tube electrified railway tunnel piercing the Pir Panjal range between Banihal (Jammu side) and Qazigund (Kashmir Valley side). Opened in June 2013, it was India's longest railway tunnel until the Banihal-Sangaldan section of the USBRL added longer tunnels in 2024.

The tunnel is the keystone of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) and represented the breakthrough that made the Kashmir Valley railway possible. Without this tunnel — and the parallel Banihal Highway Tunnel (the 8.45 km road tunnel opened 2011 to relieve the original 1956 Jawahar Tunnel) — surface road and rail access to Kashmir was severely seasonal.

Konkan Railway Corporation executed the project, with HCC and IRCON sharing the construction packages. The tunnels were excavated through highly fractured Himalayan slate and quartzite using NATM, with extensive water-ingress management — the Pir Panjal range is heavily aquifer-saturated. Total cost ₹700 crore over 8 years.

The single-track electrified tunnel carries broad-gauge trains at design speeds up to 100 km/h. A parallel pedestrian escape tube runs the length of the tunnel for emergency evacuation. The tunnel's opening cut Jammu-Srinagar rail travel from 8+ hours to 4 hours.