Hyderabad: The mammoth Oliphenta Metro ROB weighing about 1100 tons was safely placed in its designated spot over the Indian Railway tracks near Secunderabad Railway station and firmly secured with all safety precautions in the early hours of Saturday (19.08.2017), declared Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) Managing Director N.V.S. Reddy.
Two tall Metro pillars with a length of 272 feet accommodated the massive steel box girder Metro bridge structure on their pier caps.
Manufactured in Ghaziabad, this steel bridge was dismantled and brought in special containers to Secunderabad and carefully reassembled in a one acre property leased from the Railways near Secunderabad Station,
using a large number of special high strength steel plates and about 60,000 HSFG (high strength friction grip) bolts over the last few months on trestles of the same height in the Railway yard.
The completed steel bridge was moved inch by inch with the help of high strength pulling jacks, vertical lifting jacks and heavy duty road cranes over imported American Hillman Rollers from the Railway yard to its present position.
The launching and jack pulling operations which started on the 9th of this month got completed in just 10 days, which is a new record.
While this type of mega steel bridges are normally launched over rivers and gorges in jungles where there are no people moving around, it is for the first time in India that such a huge steel bridge was safely moved over extremely busy rail tracks and heavily crowded road, stated Mr.NVS Reddy.
The 272 feet long steel bridge has a width of 57 feet and height of 35 feet and in the shape of a box. Inside the box a composite deck slab (i.e., a mixture of steel and concrete bridge) will be laid to accommodate two Metro tracks.
This modern day engineering wonder was achieved by an eminent team of Railway bridge engineers of L&T led by K.M. Rao and M.Y. Kondalu.
HMRL MD is all praise for them and the other team members – A Pallam Raju, VR Saravana Kumar and G Imayavaramban who toiled night and day and ensured safe and successful launch of Oliphenta Metro bridge.
In another 15 days, the internal deck slab will be laid after which the missing link in the Metro tracks will be completed to facilitate operation of Metro trains from Nagole-Mettuguda to Ameerpet and beyond, NVS Reddy added. (INN)