The Government of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Transport have entrusted the construction of the Matara to Beliatta Phase I extension to China Machinery Corporation (CMC) of China. The China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation is instrumental in the construction work of the railway line.
The difficult topography and geology of the terrain is challenging. The rail-extension will consist of twelve bridges, and two tunnels. Railway stations will be setup at Babrenda, Kekanadura and Wewrukannala. The alignment is kept without any tight horizontal and vertical curves, gradients and it will come nearly level-crossing free.
It will take probably another 4-6 years to finalise this high costly and prestigious project. Still the earth filling for the Beliatta Railway Station and marshalling yard is not completed. Such high fillings with local available soil will need at least 4 years to settle. It is questionable if the high fillings on marshy subsoil without inside state-to-the-art Geo-Mesh/Grid (Steel or Geotextile) elements for stabilization to prevent yielding will have the appropriate yielding stability, bearing capacity and support modulus for the later to be laid track and to be build Railway Stations. The formation should have a support modulus of at least 20 MPa/m².
Problematical could be also the stiffness transitions (abrupt change of the vertical stiffness) between soft embankment strata and hard open-deck concrete bridges at the numerous abutments.
The costly 26 km rail-extension project might come finally to at least 25-30 Million US Dollar per kilometer track-route (overall Project Costs of about 500 to 600 mio. US $), and it will become a big financial burden for the country.
To read more, download:Matara-Beliatta Railway Extension Project