Chennai, Oct 31 (Representative) The Southern Railway on Tuesday successfully launched three steel girders at the Mount yard as part of MRTS Phase II extension between the Velachery-St.Thomas Mount section The girders were of 50 m length and 3.1 m height each. Three more Steel girders will be launched tomorrow, Railway sources said. A dedicated team of 100 engineers and six cranes were deployed for the work. Observing that St.Thomas Mount would become a multi-modal transport hub soon, Railway officials said the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) corridor in Chennai City has been providing quicker, hassle-free, safer and comfortable transport solutions to two lakh rail users daily. The MRTS Phase II Extension project of MRTS covering a route length of 5 km from Velachery to St.Thomas mount is nearing completion. As part of this significant infrastructure work, the launching of Steel girders on Rail Over Rail Bridge was being carried out at St.Thomas Mount yard and today, three steel girders (of the six girders) were successfully launched at the yard.
These girders were launched across the existing running lines in the Chennai Egmore-Tambaram section. These girders will form base for the railway line connecting to the St.Thomas Mount station, the new terminal station of the Phase-II MRTS and it will be a marvellously engineered Rail Over Rail (RoR) bridge running above the existing railway lines. The Chennai Metro Rail Line (CMRL’s) Phase-2 metro line from Madhavaram to Sholinganallur will run above the new line of MRTS phase-II at St.Thomas Mount. The six steel girders will be connected with cross bracings in the following week. The casting of concrete slab connecting all girders will be done subsequently and CMRL is expected to erect their girders above this structure by the year end as part of their Phase-II project.