Tamil Nadu: Railways repairs 165-yer-old bridge in 3 days

CHENNAI: It took more than 800 workers, four heavy cranes, an earth mover, 14 tonnes of rolled steel, one tonne of reinforcement bars and much concrete grouting to repair a 165-year-old bridge across a river and restore traffic in three days on the Arakkonam-Katpadi section, one of the busiest in the country.
It was a rare feat for Southern Railway to complete the work in record time along a route that has 150 trains daily. The authorities built a mini coffer dam to divert water to the adjacent piers of the bridge to create a safe working space under the pillars to repair the two cracks that had weakened the bridge at its centre portion.
Built when the first railway line was laid in the south, the bridge (no.299) across Ponnai river between Mukundarayapuram and Tiruvalam railway stations is one of the oldest in the country. A routine inspection team detected two cracks on the bridge on December 23.