South Central Railway (SCR) doubled the maximum permissible speed on a key Godavari bridge located between Mancherial-Peddampet section to 100 kmph on Tuesday.
This is also the first time that a ballasted deck bridge of over 1 km length has been permitted to operate at such high speed in the zone, informed General Manager Gajanan Mallya on Tuesday.
The stretch between Mancherial-Peddampet, covering a distance of nine km, is located in the Golden Diagonal (Grand Trunk) route of Kazipet - Balharshah section, which is a gateway of the southern region particularly from the northern region of the country.
Seven minor bridges are located within this critical stretch along with one important bridge of 1.2 km length across river Godavari. This section is surrounded by several coal, cement and thermal plants with separate line for their sidings/industries leading to heavy congestion of the section. A third line had been successfully completed in the year 2018.
Since then, the maximum permissible speed in the block section between Mancherial-Peddampet was 80 kmph, while the maximum speed over the Godavari bridge has been 50 kmph. To improve speeds on this major bridge, the long weld rails along the bridge, providing ‘Switch Expansion Joint (SEJ)’ on the both sides of the bridge approaches was done along with strengthening the track formation by unloading of another 120 wagons of ballast and tamping among others, he explained.
Safety and quality tests were done using the Track Recording Cars (TRC) and Oscillation Monitoring System (OMS) over the bridge to ensure no defects. During the same time, temporary speed restrictions along the third line between Manchiryal to Peddampet were also attended to and the speed has been increased to 100 kmph over this section.
“These steps will help in improved train operations in Kazipet-Balharshah section, a busy and saturated section with passenger and freight trains being operated at full capacity,” said Mr. Mallya, appreciating the engineering team.
