Mumbai: Construction of new bridge begins at Dombivli station

Most of the previous bridge's remains have been removed

Work has begun at Dombivli station on a new bridge, after the remains of the partially demolished previous bridge were removed following a report in mid-day on October 8 (A disaster waiting to happen at Dombivli station).

"Work has begun for foundations of the new bridge that is supposed to take the place of the older one. To speed up the work, the assembly of girders has also begun so that once the foundations and base are ready, the girders could be launched at the earliest without any further delay. We intend to finish the work very soon," Central Railway's Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said.

A site visit by mid-day on Thursday found that most of the old bridge's remains had been removed and work was on at platform four to remove the last old pillar. Work was also on to put up fences on platform 2 and 3 to barricade the digging site to lay the new foundations.

mid-day had highlighted in the front-page report how the dangerous and rusted girders of the scrapped footbridge remained over running lines. After the report, the bridge was brought down immediately.

Dombivli station has one of the highest passenger densities among stations beyond Thane. As per a study done by the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) on passenger statistics, Dombivli has been one of the stations with maximum boarding in Up direction during morning rush hours.

The study had found that just the peak hour section load (Slow + Fast Services) for Up (CSMT-bound) direction (8:30am-9:30am) and Down (Kalyan-bound) direction (6:30pm - 7:30pm) was between 40,000 to 50,000 passengers.

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