Major railway bridge renovated in S.Rly

In a feat of sorts, nearly a century old major railway bridge in Tirunelveli-Tiruchendur section of Southern Railway has been renovated without disturbing traffic in the busy route, except on Sundays.
The bridge across rier Tamirabarani was constructed in 1922 for the then metre gauge track. Later, the piers of the bridge were strengthened in 1978 to accommodate running of both broadgauge and Meter Gauge trains.
Now, under the major work, the girders of the bridge had been replaced with press stressed concrete girders at a cost of more than Rs eight crores, a railway press release here said today.

"The train services were not affected and people were not even aware that such a major bridge work was going on," Southern Railway Chief Engineer M Suyambu Lingam.
Train traffic was suspended for six hours on Sundays, from Feb 22 to June 14 this year. Even on Sundays not many trains were affected, though it was a major engineering work.
The work was completed in July this year, the release added.