BENGALURU: A 680m railway bridge standing 30m above the Bhima river will soon connect Vijayapura and Sholapur. The bridge is being built as part of the Gadag-Hotgi rail doubling project at Rs 90 crore. Once it is operational, the longest bridge in Karnataka and the South Western (SWR) Railway Zone is set give a major impetus to goods traffic between Karnataka and Maharashtra.
It will be inspected by the commissioner of railway safety on March 20-21 in connection with its commissioning.SWR chief engineer (constructions) Lakshman Singh told TNIE that the existing bridge at the spot is not able to handle high axle loads.With two power plants located in Kudgi, both Railways and NTPC will benefit from the new bridge, Singh said.
Currently, speed restrictions are imposed on trains passing through the stretch as the bridge cannot bear the heavy load carried by wagons, SWR chief administrative officer K C Swami said.“The speed restrictions ranging between 10 kmph and 20kmph imposed on trains through this stretch recently will be lifted when the new bridge is commissioned. Goods traffic can pick up pace now,” he said. “The bridge has open web with girders around it, which means that when a train passes by, it is surrounded by structures,” he explained.
The project is divided into two bridges. The completed one is likely to be commissioned by March-end and the second one within three months,” Swami said.Elaborating on the construction, Singh said that the bridge roughly rises to a height of 10 storeys above the river bed. Nearly 2,000 tonnes of structural steel and nearly 2 lakh high strength friction grip bolts are utilised in the construction. “The bridge has 14 spans, each measuring about 50 metres. The bolts have been used to connect the main structural members of the girder,” he said.