Dhulghat Spiral

Dhulghat Spiral is located in Amravati district in stste of Maharashtra in India. It is a unique spiral located on Akola-Khandwa metre guage section of South Central Railway of India.

It is also called as 'Char Cha Akda' in Marathi and 'Char Ka Aankda' in Hindi, both meaning 'Digit of Four' due to it's shape similar to that of '4' in Devnagari script.

Location

The spiral is located between Wan Road and Dhulghat stations on Akola - Ratlam metre guage railway line, at around 2 kilometres from Dhulghat station towards Akola. The area is covered by forests and hills through which the Akola - Ratlam metre guage railway line traverses.

Structure

The spiral consist of a 193 metres long steel viaduct across a shallow valley. Train arrives to this viaduct from Akola. The viaduct leads the track to a circular path around a hill. After circumnavigating the hill, the track arrives nearly parallel to the approach from Akola, but at a significantly lower altitude. This low level track passes below the first of the sixteen bridge girders towards Dhulghat station and Khandwa. The train normally takes around four minutes to complete it's journey along the spriral.

Historical and Current Usage

The spiral was a part of metre guage line from Ajmer in Rajasthan to Kacheguda in Andhra Pradesh under South Central Railway. Due to the guage conversions in recent times, the route is now shortened to Akola in Maharashtra to Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh. However, this unique spiral may soon be decommissioned because of the planned guage conversion of Akola-Ratlam section.

How to reach

The spiral can be approached from Akola which is a railway station on Mumbai-Howrah main line and Khandwa which is located on Mumbai - Delhi main line (via Bhusaval, Itarsi) of Indian Railway.