The Southern Railway has successfully completed the fixing of three steel girders at St. Thomas Mount railway station as part of the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) phase 2 extension project.
The 5-kilometre extension project is carried out from Velachery to St. Thomas Mount railway station. As part of the engineering work carried out on Tuesday, a total of 53 suburban train services were cancelled.
B. Guganesan, Chief Public Relations Officer of Southern Railway, said the three girders (a total of six girders to be commissioned) were launched above the existing tracks of the Chennai Beach -Tambaram section. The girders, each measuring 50 metres in length and three metres of height, were commissioned by a team of 100 engineers with six cranes deployed for the work. The remaining three girders will be launched on Wednesday.
These girders will form the base for the track line connecting the St. Thomas Mount station and the new terminal station of the MRTS. A rail over rail bridge running above the existing and new MRTS railway lines would cater to the Chennai Metro Rail Limited’s (CMRL) phase-II line from Madhavaram to Sholinganallur at St. Thomas Mount, he said.
The six steel girders will be connected with cross bracings in the following week. The casting of concrete slab connecting all girders will be done subsequently and the CMRL is expected to erect its girders above this structure by the end of the year as part of the Phase II project, officials said.
As part of the engineering work to be carried out at St. Thomas Mount station for three days from November 1 to 3, nine electrical multiple unit (EMU) services would be cancelled from 10.55 p.m. to 2.55 a.m. The Southern Railway has also partially cancelled three express trains between Chennai Egmore and Tambaram.
Published - October 31, 2023 07:52 pm IST
