Malakpet metro rail bridge completed in record time.

Save for drone of the vehicles below, there was almost silence atop the elevated metro viaduct over the Malakpet Railway Station on Tuesday night. With safety helmets, harnesses and shiny vests, top engineers of L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH) were eagerly waiting for the last train to cross the tracks below to install a 35 tonne concrete segment to finish the curved 165 ft (50 metres) bridge at a height of 58 ft (17.7 metres).

'Segment is eight metres lengthwise and we have a gap of three metres width on the bridge,' crackles the voice of Sharvan Kumar, a senior engineer, over his mobile to Chief Engineer (Construction) M.Y. Kondalu down below on the station platform and looking out for the Jaipur Express to pass by over his shoulder before it is lowered into the fixed space.

“We should be very careful about trains movement. When we take traffic block time from South Central Railway (SCR) to halt all activity for a particular period of time, preceding trains drivers are also alerted to keep hooting till they pass and highly skilled workers atop the bridge have warning hoots for every slight movement of the segment,” says ex-Indian Railway Service engineer.

Within a couple of hours, the task was done and another amazing engineering feat completed. The bridge over the railway overbridge near the station was completed in a record 25 days than the originally scheduled three months! L&TMRH took permission from the railways to halt trains activity from 12.20 a.m. to 3.20 a.m. for four days but it was done over three nights right atop the tracks.

'It’s a remarkable feat, done with precision and under extremely difficult circumstances with the almost continuous traffic below. Unlike Begumpet railway station bridge, we went for pre-stressed concrete segments to complete it faster,' avers Hyderabad Metro Rail MD N.V.S. Reddy, closely monitoring the work.

Metro rail engineers were able to put the 12 segments between the two piers separated by the two overhead railway lines and space for two more lines to be laid in the future, with the help of two huge 80-tonne ‘Bridge Builders’. These cranes (up to 10 days to assemble) lift, help stack up the segments, stick them together with special glue and strung tight with help of metallic cables. Next target is completion of the steel bridge across Oliphenta and another bridge at the Lakdi-ka-pul railway station.

THE HINDU