Hyderabad Metro Rail embark on toughest stretch

Hyderabad: The South Central Railway has leased out one acre of land at Chilkalguda to Hyderabad Metro Rail to facilitate the construction of Metro Rail over the Oliphanta bridge.

The land will be used to assemble and launch the Metro Rail bridge. Work is expected to be completed by January next.

According to HMR managing director N.V.S. Reddy the pre-fabricated steel bridge structure will be bought from Ghaziabad to Secunderabad for the Oliphanta ROB. Of the eight Metro Rail overbridges in the twin cities, the Oliphanta structure is said to be the toughest.

The Metro Rail bridge will be built 28 feet above the Oliphanta bridge. This separation is needed to allow the railways to operate double-decker services later on. SCR has specified that no Metro Rail pillar will be located between the railway tracks or on railway land.

Accordingly, the Metro Rail main span will be 275 feet without any support and will be 60 feet above the road level. HMR will also need to factor a sharp 128-metre radius road curvature.

Mr Reddy said the steel bridge weighing about 1,100 tonnes was fabricated and assembled at an engineering factory in Ghaziabad. He said to withstand the stresses on the structure, high strength friction grip bolts were used.

The bridge will be dismantled at Ghaziabad and brought to Secunderabad by July. A temporary multi-pillar support structure called “trestle structure”, which will be about 500 feet, would be assembled on the railway land to facilitate work on the Metro Rail bridge.

Mr Reddy said the earlier plan was to launch the work from the Lekha Bhavan and Gopalapuram police station side but that would have delayed the bridge construction by a year.