Country's longest rail bridge at Kochi gets its final trial run

Kochi (Kerala), Apr 1 (ANI): The trial run using an engine was held in Kochi on Wednesday over the country's longest rail bridge in the stretch from Idappally to Vallarpadam.

The 8.86 kilometer-long link was built at a total cost of Rs 350 crore funded by Goverment of India through Ministry of Shipping. The Rail Vikas Nigam oversaw the work. The rail link also includes the longest railway bridge (4.62 km) in the country.

The track has been laid to the best specifications with 52 Kg rails, Pre-stressed Concrete sleepers and 30 cm ballast cushion. The track has been fully electrified and has the latest signalling system.

Officials have said that the trial run on the Vallarpadam rail link was a success.

The project has the longest Railway Bridge and other four small bridges. The bridges are on 1.2 diameter piles and are taken to an average depth of about 55 metres. There are over 1275 piles made for the project totalling to about 65000 metres of pile length.

All put together, there are 99 spans of 40 m and 33 spans of 20 m U girder.

The new bridge cuts across the Vembanad Lake through the Mulavukad Island and will push the Nehru Setu Bridge near Dehri on river Sone in Bihar to the second place by more than a kilometre.

Building the new bridge involved massive deployment of manpower and material. By Juhan Samuel (ANI)