First girder of Gokhale bridge launched, one side will open to traffic on Feb 15

The trial run for launching the Open Web Girder (OWG) was held on Friday (December 1) midnight when the OWG was pushed by four metres towards the railway tracks.

During the final launch, the steel structure was slid towards the side from where the railway tracks pass through, following which the superstructure was aligned over the pillars.

The OWG is a fabricated structure constructed at a workshop in Ambala. It was transported to Mumbai where it was assembled near the construction site.

Civic officials said that during the next 15 days, the OWG will be pushed 14 metres further to connect the East-West stretch, following which the girder will be lowered by 7.5 metres to match the level of approach roads.

“The Western Railway has approved a traffic block of 11 days for four hours during the night. During this period, the girder will be brought down, on an average of 550 milimetres in three hours, every night,” said a civic official.
During the girder launch on Saturday night, civic officials, including deputy municipal commissioner (infrastructure) Ulhas Mahale, was present at the spot along with Andheri legislator, Ameet Satam.

The operation is being supervised by Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES), which is the expert agency appointed by the authorities to foresee the operation.

After the first girder is aligned in the spot entirely, the BMC will carry out construction of the approach roads and finish the overall ancillary works, including laying of bars, erecting road signage and levelling the roads using asphalt and concrete. Vehicular movement will resume from February 15, Satam said.

After the first girder starts catering to traffic, the civic body will launch the second girder in a similar manner. The BMC officials said that the entire bridge will become operational by May, 2024.

The length of the girder is 90 metres, making them the second longest railway over bridge (ROB) after the Vidyavihar ROB in eastern suburbs, which measures 99.8 metres.

Meanwhile, the old structure of the Gokhale bridge, which was pulled down last year measured 77 metres, while the recently launched Delisle bridge is 72 metres. The weight of the OWG is around 1,300 metric tonnes (MT).
A crucial east-west connector in Andheri — the Gokhale Bridge — was shut down in November 2022, after the authorities cited weak structural stability of the bridge. The old structure was demolished by the railways in December last year and the work order for building the new bridge was issued in January this year.