Southern Railway to replace 16 Corroded Girders on Pamban bridge

Southern Railway to replace 16 Corroded Girders on Pamban bridge

Pamban (PBM): After completing major re-girdering works by replacing 28 highly corroded girders on the Pamban railway bridge, railways will now undertake another similar task to replace 16 girders.

The re-girdering work between January 6 and September 18 took place without affecting train traffic. After the guard rail and running rail were renewed in 2014-15, re-girdering of the spans were taken up and completed without causing much disturbance to existing train services.

“We have successfully completed the re-girdering of 28 spans and we will carry out work to replace another 16 spans. Preliminary works have commenced and we will complete the project by the end of this financial year,” said Sunil Kumar Garg, DRM/Madurai Division.

Re-girdering work was estimated at a cost of Rs 6.76 crore to replace the girders between the 60th and 145th spans which were more than 28 years old.

During gauge conversion in 2007, only 22 new girders were laid and the remaining 122 were strengthened after re-bracing. The dimensions of each girder were 13.30m in length, 2.35m in breadth and 1.25m in height and weighed 11 tonnes.

It turned out to be a laborious process since it was carried out manually with the help of a gantry as machinery could not be moved on the bridge. This is the first time after the gauge conversion that the girders are replaced, railway officials said.

Hi Tech Engineers from Ramanathapuram, which was awarded the contract, was given schedules to replace the girders by working three days a week – Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays — when train services were suspended from 6.10 to 9.10am so that least disturbance is caused.

Due to this work, only two trains were affected by delay (of 30 to 40 minutes) on the first day of the commencement of work. Otherwise, the re-girdering work was completed within the time constraint of allotted three hours, officials said.