North Central Railway (NCR) upgraded a 73-year-old steel girder bridge (number 131), located in the Chunar-Chopan section of Prayagraj Division. Originally built in 1953, the bridge has now been upgraded using pre-stressed Concrete (PSC) girder slabs.
The original bridge was designed based on broad gauge main line (BGML) loading standards, a benchmark adopted by Indian Railways back in 1926. Due to its ageing structure, it was operating under a speed restriction of only 30 kmph for revised broad gauge loads.
To meet modern requirements, the bridge was redesigned according to Revised Broad Gauge (RBG) Loading-1976 standards. This specific axle load standard, defined in the IRS Bridge Rules, is designed to handle significantly heavier train loads and serves as the current metric for calculating bridge capacity.
The 100-km Chunar-Chopan section is vital for goods transport. It serves as a critical link for transporting coal from Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL) in Singrauli to various power plants across North India. This section is quite congested, often operating well beyond its capacity, thus making infrastructure strengthening a top priority.
The old configuration had five spans (4 X 9.15 meter + 1 X 18.3 meter) while the renovated new configuration has six spans of pre-stressed concrete slabs (4 X 9.15 meter + 2 X 8.67 meter).
The challenging re-girdering work was completed through a phased approach. The first span was laid on February 27, 2026 and the final fifth and sixth spans were successfully laid on March 08, 2026.
After the renovation the bridge can now handle heavier freight trains. With this, there will be significant increase in speed limits for mail express and passenger trains, leading to reduced travel time. The newly installed PSC slabs require much less maintenance compared to old steel girders.
