British built road overbridge near Tiruchi Fort station demolished

Southern Railway demolishes British-era road overbridge near Tiruchi Fort railway station to build new structure, causing train disruptions.

The British-era road overbridge above the broad gauge railway track near the Tiruchi Fort railway station was demolished by the Southern Railway Construction Organisation on Tuesday to build a new structure in its place.

The Southern Railway Construction Organisation had obtained prior permission from the Southern Railway headquarters at Chennai to carry out the demolition work. The new bridge will come up above the Tiruchi - Karur electrified railway section. A line block and a power block for 15 hours was obtained by the Southern Railway Construction Organisation from the Tiruchi Railway Division well in advance to execute the task.

The demolition work commenced in the morning as planned with a team of about 60 workers engaged in the task under the supervision of the Southern Railway Construction Organisation officials based at Tiruchi.  The Divisional Railway Manager, Tiruchi M.S. Anbalagan inspected the work at the site.

Constructed over 150 years ago, the road overbridge was strengthened in 1971, railway sources said. The road overbridge was demolished by using the hydraulic breaker method and the huge debris was cleared from the site of work by using backhoe loaders and heavy tipper type vehicles. A separate team of workers were engaged for debris clearing work later.

The new bridge is being jointly constructed by the Southern Railway Construction Organisation and the Tiruchi Corporation. The Southern Railway Construction Organisation will build the new structure in the railway portion at a cost of ₹12 crore. The Tiruchi Corporation is to lay the approach road on either side of the new bridge. The sources further said the length of the two-lane new bridge would be 30 metres. 

Several trains operating in the Tiruchi - Karur BG section were cancelled and a few others were partially cancelled, diverted and regulated enroute in view of the dismantling of the road overbridge work.