Metro Rail Over Bridges (ROBs) – Visit to Oliphenta & Alugaddabavi

Hyderabad Metro Rail corridors are crossing the tracks of Indian Railways at eight locations in twin cities: Corridor – I (Miyapur to LB Nagar)  ; Bharatnagar, Lakdikapul and Malakpet ; Corridor II ( JBS to Falaknuma)    : Boiguda (Western side of Sec’bad station) and Corridor III (Nagole to Raidurg)     : Begumpet, Oliphenta, Chilkalguda and Alugaddabavi

Depending on the locational and technical requirements, different methods are adopted for construction of the Metro ROBs :

Two Steel Bridges are being built at  Oliphenta and Boiguda and six PSC

PSC Bridges  at Bharat Nagar, Lakdikapul, Malakpet, Alugaddabavi, Chilkalguda and Begumpet, Metro rail MD NVS Reddy said.

Since the Railway tracks are already on elevated bridges at Malakpet, Alugaddabavi, Chilkalguda, Oliphenta and Boiguda, the Metro ROBs will cross these Railway Bridges at double elevation. So far three ROBs (Bharatnagar, Chilkalguda and Alugaddabavi) have been completed and ROBs at Oliphenta, Begumpet and Malakpet are in advance stage of construction. ROBs at Lakdikapul and Boiguda are at pillar construction stage.

             

Under the supervision of reputed Railway bridge engineering veterans like C.B.K.Rao (who earlier supervised most of DMRC construction) and Subodh Jain (Retd. Member Engineering, Railway Board), and with the approval of the  design and construction methods by different expert  consultancy firms and SC Railway, this mammoth engineering challenge is being tackled at the  Oliphenta site.  The railway and other bridge engineering veterans have stated that it is for the first time in the country  that a bridge of this magnitude is being done over busy road and rail corridors.  Normally such bridges are done only over rivers and valleys, where there is no traffic and that this will be an engineering landmark, they have assured.

Of all the eight Metro RoBs, Oliphenta bridge construction is the toughest and an engineering challenge. It is located next to the Secunderabad Railway station which is a very busy station round the clock.

As the Metro alignment is in a steep curvature coming from Mettuguda side (a curve of 128 mtrs radius), the width of the steel bridge had to be increased to accommodate the Metro tracks with steep curvature.

The entire steel bridge weighing about 1100 tons made of special high grade steel was first manufactured and assembled at a factory in Ghaziabad (near Delhi) simulating the site conditions of Oliphenta location and later dismantled piece by piece and brought to Secunderabad for reassembling.

            The Metro ROB at Alugaddabavi is another engineering challenge owing to the presence of 600 mm dia water pipeline, 33KV power line, telecom cables and continuous high density traffic flow round the clock.The ROB was constructed in PSC method at a height of 62 ft from ground level and also built as a double elevation ROB over an already existing elevated ROB. (NSS)