HYDERABAD: The mammoth Oliphenta Metro Road over Bridge (RoB) weighing about 1,100 tons was safely placed in its designated spot over the Indian Railway tracks near Secunderabad Railway station and firmly secured with all safety precautions in the early hours of Saturday.Two tall Metro pillars with a length of 272 feet accommodated the massive steel box girder metro bridge structure on their pier caps.
Manufactured in Ghaziabad, the steel bridge was dismantled and brought in special containers to Secunderabad and reassembled in a one-acre property leased from the Railways near Secunderabad station, using a large number of special high strength steel plates and about 60,000 high strength friction grip bolts over the last few months on trestles of the same height in the Railway yard, HMRL Managing Director, NVS Reddy said.
The completed steel bridge was moved inch by inch with the help of high strength pulling jacks, vertical lifting jacks and heavy duty road cranes over imported American Hillman Rollers from the Railway yard to it’s present position.The launching and jack pulling operations which started on the August 9 got completed in just 10 days, which is a new record.The 272-feet long steel bridge has a width of 57 feet and height of 35 feet and in the shape of a box.Inside the box a composite deck slab (i.e., a mixture of steel and concrete bridge) will be laid to accommodate two Metro tracks.In another 15 days, the internal deck slab will be laid after which the missing link in the Metro tracks will be completed to facilitate operation from Nagole-Mettuguda to Ameerpet and beyond, NVS Reddy added.