In a first, Mumbai to get cable-stayed bridge over rail lines

Design of the proposed cable-stayed bridge

With ambitious plans for Mumbai's first cable-stayed bridge over railway lines at Byculla, a deal was finalised on Tuesday evening to reconstruct 11 British-era road overbridges (ROB) in the city and suburbs between the Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (MRIDC) and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)."

The MRIDC has to construct the 11 ROBs and a road under bridge (RUB), that is, a road going under the railway lines. To start with, the MRIDC has decided to reconstruct the Byculla ROB, located between Byculla and Sandhurst Road railway station. It is a British Era bridge built in 1922.

LED lights to be fitted all over the bridge
Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal, managing director, MRIDC, said, "To enhance the visual appearance of the bridge, we have designed architectural LED lights all over the bridge, which shall be illuminated at night. This shall improve the aesthetic appeal of the bridge and will have an added advantage of improved safety parameters. A selfie point is also being provided on this iconic bridge." Giving a status update, Jaiswal said, "MRIDC has already conducted utility mapping up to 5 m below the ground level to decide on the best location for a foundation footprint, pile cap, etc."

Work on to decide on laying the foundation of the bridge

Eventually, two road overbridges in Byculla
"The new ROB will consist of eight lanes, an upgrade from the current 6, with four on either side. The existing viaduct of the ROB will be merged with the new structure. Also, after the new bridge is ready, all traffic will be diverted there and the old bridge will be reconstructed with four lanes. This will ensure there is no disruption in traffic," he said.

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The IIT Bombay had conducted a condition assessment survey of the existing bridge and found that the Byculla ROB needs to be replaced on priority as its condition is beyond repair or rehabilitation. In the first stage, the cable-stayed ROB will be built parallel to the existing bridge, without disturbing it. In the second stage, the existing road bridge will be reconstructed at the same location while the new one handles the traffic.

Works on 23 FOB locations on CR since lockdown
Ever since the lockdown was announced in March, Central Railway has completed important infrastructure work utilising the lockdown period which would have otherwise required many traffic blocks.

Important infrastructure works have been carried out at 23 foot overbridge locations. Out of these, seven are on Mumbai Division, 10 in Bhusaval Division, one each in Nagpur and Solapur Divisions and four on Pune Division.

Two more train services for essential workers
Western Railway will run one pair of additional Mainline-EMU services for essential services staff between Virar and Dahanu Road from July 16. WR Chief Public Relations Officer Sumit Thakur said at present Western Rly is running 350 special services of local trains with defined protocol and SOP, only for the movement of essential govt staff, as identified by the government.

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