Velachery rail overbridge work resumes, to be ready by April

Once complete, it will give motorists easier access to OMR and ECR

Southern Railway has restarted work on the railway overbridge (ROB) on Station Road near Velachery station and plans to finish it by April.

Once work is completed, the ROB, which runs parallel to the tracks of the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) from Velachery to Taramani stations, will give motorists easier access to Rajiv Gandhi Salai and ECR. It will also pave the way for decongesting the Vijaynagar junction at Velachery.

A senior official of the Southern Railway said the Station Road ROB had remained incomplete because of the delay in execution of the mini ROB near the Velachery railway station. The ROB would have 6 arms through which rainwater would drain into the Pallikaranai marsh.

He said three spans were complete and work on construction of two arms was under progress. The construction of the mini bridge had stalled because of the poor condition of the soil. The clayey soil caused the concrete foundation to sink at a few places and so construction was stopped for several years. To overcome this problem, huge concrete slabs are being readied near the construction site and once the foundation work of the six spans is completed, the concrete slabs would be fixed above the arms and the road would be paved, he added.

Southern Railway has completed 40% of the ROB work and the remaining is being speeded up. Work on the ROB, running for around 4 km, was started as early as 2009 by the railways to provide easy connectivity between the three stations.

Even as residents hope the mini bridge is completed and the Station Road is fully linked, they want the railways to improve the lighting on the road. At present Station Road has no streetlights. The lights on the service road near Perungudi station are also not working, complain MRTS users. The railway official said once the project is completed, streetlights would be installed.