Indian Railways is working tirelessly to improve its infrastructure across the country. In this context, South Central Railway (SCR) zone has commissioned the longest rail flyover on August 25, 2023 (Friday). This rail flyover has been constructed by the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL).
Longest Rail Flyover of SCR:-
The SCR’s longest rail flyover has been constructed between Gudur-Manubolu railway stations in Vijayawada Division. This is the seventh Rail over Rail (RoR) across the zones. The Gudur-Manubolu RoR stretched for a distance of 2.2 kms. The previous longest Rail Flyover on the Zone was only 40 meters.
“This new rail flyover will help in drastically reducing the waiting period of Trains while approaching the busy Gudur Station,” Arun Kumar Jain, General Manager, SCR said in a statement.
Construction history of Gudur-Manubolu Rail Flyover:-
The Gudur-Manubolu Rail Flyover has been successfully completed within a period of two years. It consists of PSC (Pre-stressed Concrete) and Composite girders which have inherent high torsional resistance and lower overall maintenance costs. Apart from this, the high grade concrete and structural steel was used for the Substructure, PSC Girders and Slab of the Flyover.
The RVNL planned the dimensions of the bridge in such a way that would facilitate smooth execution of the project within the available Railway land, thereby avoiding any land acquisition.
Significance of Gudur-Manubolu Rail Flyover:-
Located on the busy Grand Trunk Route, the Gudur railway station is an important interchange point between South Central Railway and Southern Railway handling all types of train movements. The commissioning of the rail flyover will help ease the train movements in this saturated section. It will also facilitate simultaneous movements of trains between Vijayawada to Renigunta and Chennai to Vijayawada, while passing through Gudur station. Earlier, one of the train movements had to be stopped to facilitate movement in another direction.
Thus, this new Rail Flyover will simultaneously eliminate detentions on account of cross-movements, improve average speed of the trains and enhance operational efficiency of the train movements in the section. This single line Rail Flyover has been designed to handle traffic in both directions and is fit to handle trains with 32.5 Tonnes of axle load.