The Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), which had been chosen by the Indian Railways to replace the century-old Scherzer’s span, designed and installed at the Pamban rail bridge to pave way for vessels to pass through, has finalised three international consultants to make ready the preliminary design of the new span.
Three consultants, including two from the US, had been short-listed to prepare the preliminary design and they were expected to make ready the designs in the next two to three months, after which tenders would be called to finalise the executing agency, Pradeep Gaur, Executive Director (Project) told The Hindu .
After inspecting the century-old bridge with his colleagues on Saturday, he said the existing Scherzer’s span would be replaced probably with a vertically lifting single truss span “but nothing has been finalised.”
Vertical lifting single spans were being used worldwide, he added.
Pointing that they were replacing an iconic bridge that served more than 100 years, he said “we are trying to do the best using the latest state-of-the-art technology and want people to have a feel that good job has been done.” The new span should also serve for more than 100 years, he said.
The existing Scherzer’s span model for Railways has been banned all over the world as it was considered unsafe. “The span is inherently not safe and we will do the best while replacing it,” he said. This was the only bridge of this type in India, he said adding in the US there were more than 3,000 movable bridges and “we are trying to get world class consultants.”
After finalising the tender process, the fabrication work would begin in six to eight months, Mr Gaur said. The entire fabrication work would be done outside and the train affecting time on the bridge would be as less as possible when the span was installed, he said.
It would take one to one and a half years to complete the work, he said. After the installation of the new span, speed of trains on the bridge could be considerably enhanced from the present 15 km/ph, he said.
