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Western Railway uses modern technique to scan old Mumbai bridges
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IANS | 16 Jul, 2018
After Railway Minister Piyush Goyal cracked the whip, the Western
Railway (WR) launched a safety audit of all 445 bridges on the Mumbai
suburban section, deploying modern techniques to scan some of the oldest
structures, an official said here on Saturday.
The first to be
inspected and audited was the 98-year old Mahalaxmi road overbridge
(ROB) and later the Bandra ROB, with the new time-saving technique
through the "tower wagon car".
"The tower wagon has been designed
to save inspection time to two hours against the normal four hours by
conventional methods and even perform urgent repairs," said WR
spokesperson Ravinder Bhakar.
Conventionally, a long ladder was
transported from Lower Parel station to the required station, shifted
manually to the bridge site and only one person at a time could climb
it, while clutching a load of equipment. The ladder needed to be shifted
continuously for examining each girders, pillars or spans.
However,
the new tower wagon allows the entire inspection team to climb to the
targeted site armed with tools and machinery, and even carry out spot
emergency repairs, making it a quick, safe and quality process, said
Bhakar.
On the WR's Churchgate-Virar sector, there are 29 ROBs,
110 Foot overbridges (FOBs) and four pipeline bridges, and the rest are
on the Central Railway (CR), across Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad
districts, catering to over eight million daily suburban commuters.
Top
WR officials including General Manager A. K. Gupta, Divisional Railway
Manager Sanjay Mishra, Principal Chief Engineer R. K. Meena and Chief
Safety Officer Manoj Sharma were present when the inspections were
carried out in the early hours on Saturday.
Spelling relief, the
Mahalaxmi ROB was found to be "structurally sound and in safe condition"
at all its 15 girders and five spans after it was inspected in minute
details by two tower wagons.
The 56-year old Bandra ROB with 13 girders and three spans was also found structurally safe and sound, the WR said.
Bouyed
by the results, the WR will now carry out the safety audits of all the
remaining bridges with tower wagons over the next three-four months, as
resolved at a high-level meeting on July 5.
Following stringent
observations by the Bombay High Court, a public uproar after the July 3
crash of a portion of the Andheri FOB which killed one woman, the
beleagured WR, CR, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation along with
IIT-Bombay experts launched the full-scale bridges' audits.
It
was decided to order repairs or reconstruct the stressed bridges on
priority without procedural delays, with precedence given to the oldest
structures, while ensuring complete coordination among various agencies.
The
three organisations will also conduct regular monthly meetings of top
officials, clear issues about designs, drawings, approvals, land issues,
etc, to speed up the required works.
They would also explore the
feasibility of creating a special corpus fund for the purpose of an
appropriate amount, to ensure financial resources are readily available,
especially for undertaking works of urgent nature or in emergencies.
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