Central Railway pulls off a Houdini’s Act at Sandhurst Road

The harbour line bridge at Sandhurst Road railway station - India's first rail flyover - has been rebuilt, under the cover of darkness, without stopping the city's lifeline that runs at a four-minute frequency. The original girders made at Glasgow, England have been replaced by Make-in-India ones manufactured at Manmad.

The Central Railway on Monday announced that the work on the 100-year-old bridge is complete. It used to be a ballasted deck slab which was replaced by channel sleepers in 1987. This time, the entire bridge has been replaced slowly and steadily.

Eight mega blocks

"Preliminary works started from November 26, 2021 in regular night blocks. A total of eight mega blocks of five hours each on harbour line were taken to complete the re-girdering work of eight spans. The whole work has been completed in time with safety measures in place and not a single untoward incident," Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said.

He added, "During an inspection in 2010, it was found that the spans had corroded, mostly due to the saline environment of Mumbai. This made re-girdering important and a comprehensive plan was worked out at a cost of R178 lakh and work was awarded in 2017."

"The finalisation of the scheme went through several rounds of deliberations. The site was a difficult one due to the unavailability of any approach for heavy machinery. The presence of CSMT-Kalyan local lines with overhead wires just underneath the girders posed another challenge. Any disruption would have caused immediate shutting down of both the harbour and main lines. The new girders were made at Central Railway Engineering Workshop at Manmad, transported to Wadibunder yard, and erected by chain pulleys. At the same time, the old girders were removed and taken down meticulously," he said.

History

The original Glasgow-built elevated harbour line bridge at Sandhurst Road railway station was constructed in 1923 by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway company and was used for inauguration of India's first electric railway trains.

Named after the then Bombay Governor William Mansfield, first Viscount Sandhurst, (1895-1900), the Sandhurst Road's upper level station is a maze of steel frames and pillars. The viaduct has 2,788 tons of steel and is 1,728-feet long with 39 spans of various lengths, and it cost Rs 20 lakh back in those days to complete the work. The station's pillars along the platform and bridge frames have huge metal plates bearing inscriptions, detailing the particulars of the construction, year and the contractor.

The plaques read "P&W MacLellan Clutha Works, Glasgow. G.I.P.R. Contract No. 1185-1921". Archives state that the firm P&W MacLellan from Glasgow was founded in 1811 and expanded in 1871 after the opening of the Clutha Works in MacLellan Street in the Glasgow suburb of Kinning Park and had a number of contracts from the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. In fact, the firm was also involved in the construction of the famous Chenab Bridge for the Indian State Railways in 1888, linking the Sandhurst bridge to an era when large railway bridges were coming over huge rivers and sea beds. The company shut down as late as 1979.