Andhra Pradesh - Guntur   

Three Bridges strengthened with concrete slabs

Photo: T. Vijaya Kumar

Work apace: Pre-cast slabs being put in place at the Three Bridges Rail over Road Bridge at Donka Road in Guntur on Tuesday. —

GUNTUR: For a hassle-free road traffic at the Three Bridges, where railway lines from Guntur to Tenali and Guntur to Vijayawada pass over the Arundelpet - Kothapet Donka Road, Guntur Division of South Central Railway replaced old steel girders with pre-stressed, pre-cast concrete slabs within 72 hours. The traffic on the road was allowed from 6 p.m. onwards.

Steel girders on two bridges were changed with eight slabs each weighing 17 tonnes and eight side panels to keep the ballast intact for the rails to be stable while train passes over it. Each side panel weighs 10 tonnes and all this work was done by 40-tonnes cranes with precision and avoiding any kind of mishap. Four civil engineers, four signalling and electrical engineers along with 50 other staff members worked throughout three days planning on ground and preparing for the replacements.

Outcome of this exercise is safety and convenience for the road users, said DRM Mohammed Akhtar. This has allowed the division to revive the old meter-gauge bridge. “This line would be converted into a broad gauge line and Guntur Yard at the Railway Station connected with Pitline Yard towards Vijayawada so that movement of trains for water servicing of rakes could be taken up on this track without disturbing the traffic on the mainline,” he said. While two cranes worked on the bridges a third one was kept as standby. People passing from Donka Road/Arundelpet to Vijayawada or Kothapet in the city had been facing problems at Three Bridges Junction following dropping of human waste/food particles or water from the trains running above and the Railways has decided to replace the bottom of the railway tracks with pre-cast concrete slabs on the Guntur-Tenali Section and Guntur-Vijayawada section. Divisional Railway Engineer Prasada Rao said the work had to be done with a lot of safety measure in place, hence traffic would be blocked both on road and rails during the working hours.

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