Three steel girders were launched over the Western Railway mainlines between Dahisar and Mira Road station last night. This marks an important milestone for the Mumbai Metro Line 2A project.
The girders were launched during a traffic power block on WR between 00:05 hrs and 03:35 hrs. Complexities introduced due to the location and the monsoon season meant a lot of preparation was required beforehand.
The metro alignment runs adjacent to the Dahisar flyover service road for about 1,200 metres. The metro piers are aligned to ensure that the least possible amount of service road space is used. A gap of only 400-500 mm exists between the face of the pier and the edge of the flyover.
The bottom of the metro pier cap is 5.5 metres above the flyover to ensure safe vehicular movement.
The girders have been placed on precast post-tensioned pier caps. After erection of girders, work of cast in-situ deck slab shall be taken up on already placed decking sheet and thereafter RCC parapets will be erected to complete the superstructure.
Each girder weighed 36 tons. The three girders were fabricated in Hyderabad.
Despite issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commissioner of Railway Safety approved the requisite drawings through e-office. A similar process was followed by Western Railway officials to speed the process up.
“We are glad that despite having a lot of on-site complications including incessant rainfall the city witnessed in past a few days we were able to complete the task,” said R A Rajeev, MMRDA Commissioner.
“MMRDA is now one step closer to the trial runs on Metro Line 2A that are expected to begin in January 2021 with the completion of this work,” he claimed.