MahaRail ‘Dismantling Elphinstone toughest part, construction will be comparatively smooth’

How are you managing dismantling within such constraints?

What we have are 2-3 hour nightly corridor blocks between the last and first local trains, and slightly longer 4-6 hour mega blocks on weekend nights. We divided the bridge into three spans of roughly 30 metres each. During these blocks, workers cut the steel deck segments, which are then lifted by two 800 MT cranes positioned at both ends of the bridge.
This continues until only the main girders remain. Those girders are then cut and lifted away in mega blocks of 4 to 6 hours.

What is the current stage of the work?

The west end span has been completely dismantled. That required around 15 to 16 railway blocks. As of Monday night, we have started dismantling the central and east spans. The central span is the toughest because it is longer and furthest from the cranes. By the end of February, give or take a few days, the entire bridge will be dismantled.

Will you require a longer railway block for the final dismantling?

For removing the main girder, a longer railway corridor block is required. In a longer railway block, crane productivity increases significantly. When dismantling portions of the bridge, the first task is dealing with the overhead equipment (OHE) wires. The 25 KV power supply has to be cut for safety purposes. Older bridges act as supports for the OHE, so the wires are looped around the structure. During mega blocks, a railway team lowers the OHE before we begin cutting, and raises it again after crane work is completed. This OHE work takes nearly 3 hours out of a 4 hour block, leaving only about 1 hour for crane operations. If we get a 6-8 hour block, the OHE time remains the same but crane time increases. If we do not get it, we will dismantle one girder per mega block of 4 to 6 hours, as we did for the west span.

What challenges do you foresee in reconstruction, especially with the double-decker design?

Dismantling is the toughest part. Construction will be comparatively smooth. The new bridge will have a single 132 metre girder with no piers between the railway lines. The girder has already been fabricated in Noida. We chose an open web girder design to allow larger spans. Once the piers are built, the girder will be launched and slid into position. Since it is a double decker bridge, the foundation will be deeper and the pillars wider.

There are different timelines being discussed. Which is the realistic one?

The original target date given by MahaRail was October 2026. We have preponed to August 2026. April, however, will not be possible. We are trying to speed up the work and complete it as early as possible.

MRIDC was given the Central Railway side of the bridge on November 7, 2025, and Western Railway on December 30, 2025. We gave a schedule of a year to complete the double-decker bridge in all respects, which we are trying to complete in 10 months, by Sept. This will make it one of the fasted completed bridges, only possible due to MahaRail’s expertise.

How are other bridge projects progressing?

At Byculla, we are building a parallel three lane cable stayed bridge. After that, the existing four lane bridge will be demolished and another three lane bridge constructed, making six lanes in total. Half of the cable stays have been fitted. By mid March, the deck should be ready and we aim to open it before the monsoon. At Dadar, underground works are complete and deck construction is underway. It will take about another year. The Ghatkopar bridge is nearly 4 km long and will take longer. Like our other bridges, these will feature advanced lighting and aesthetic elements.