After four days of hard work, more than 200 support beams have been erected under the damaged railway bridge across the Ponnai river in Vellore district.
The repairs have come to an end, and the trial run of trains is expected to begin on Monday, railway officials said on Sunday.
Senior officials, including Chennai Divisional Railway Manager Ganesh and a team of experts from Structural Engineering Research Centre (CSIR-SERC), had camped at the site for the past two days to monitor the repairs to the British-era bridge. “Regular run of express trains will take a few more days because a safety audit has to be done,” a railway official said.
Railway officials said each steel beam is 6 feet long, 1.5 feet high and 2 feet wide and weighs 180 kg-200 kg. More than 200 beams have been erected around the damaged brick-and-mortar pillar. They have been buttressed by dozens of sandbags.
As ordered by Collector P. Kumaravel Pandian, water release into the Ponnai, a tributary of the Palar, has been stopped to prevent damage to the beams.
