Damaged rail bridge on KK line repaired, services to resume on

The railway bridge on the Koraput-Visakhapatnam line, which was badly damaged after a huge rock fell on it, has been repaired and the route will be opened for trains from December 11, the East Coast Railway (ECoR) said today.
It was reconstructed at a cost of Rs 7 crore by 400 labourers in 58 days. The work was completed in record time, the ECoR said in a statement.
Bridge No. 248 was affected badly when a huge rock fell from the side of a close by waterfall and damaged its No. 1 pier on October 6 last, it said.
The statement said that the bridge between the Borraguhalu and Chimidipalli stations, on the Kottavalasa- Koraput-Kirandul (KK) line, is around 90 km from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and about 120 km from Koraput in Odisha.

The line runs through the Eastern Ghats and is crucial for people of the area as it links Visakhapatnam to Koraput and Kerandul in Chhatisgarh's Bastar region.
The impact was so huge that the upper part of the pier was separated and moved 1.6 metres. Two agencies were engaged to repair it, the statement said.

One of the agencies was engaged in releasing the 100-feet girder from the pier and securing it till the new one was constructed. The other was engaged in dismantling the damaged pier and its re-construction, it said.
The work was carried out in difficult terrain with steep rocky slopes. A pathway was constructed to approach the bottom of the pier from the track, ECoR said.

Minor adjustment and fixing of bearings under the girder was made and the trial run with a tower wagon was made yesterday, it said, adding that formal traffic will be resumed from the midnight of December 11.