Another milestone has been added to the achievements of Indian Railways as the trial run on the Pamban Railway Sea Bridge in Rameswaram was successful. In the Arabian Sea at Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, a successful trial run of OHE (Over Head Equipment) was conducted on the Pamban Bridge constructed by Indian Railways.
With the completion of the lift span mechanism, Southern Railway successfully conducted a trial run on the new Pamban Railway Sea Bridge by running an OHE tower car across the bridge up to Rameswaram station.
Last month, in the final week of July, the installation work of the center lift span on this new bridge was completed. Following this, tracks connecting both ends of the Pamban Bridge were laid. The track laying work on the new bridge was completed last week. After this, the OHE tower car was operated on the Pamban Bridge for the first time since 2022.
Railway Minister tweets
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted a video providing information. "The New Pamban Railway Bridge - a testament to the incredible capabilities of our engineers and technicians,” he said.
It is noteworthy that train services on the old Pamban Railway Sea Bridge were suspended.
The old railway bridge was completely closed in December 2022. During monitoring by a team of experts from IIT Madras, excessive vibrations were detected in the bridge during train movements. Following this, the old Pamban Bridge was completely closed for railway operations in December 2022. The construction work of the new Pamban Bridge, adjacent to the old bridge built during the British era, started in 2019.
A trial run has now been conducted on the new Pamban Rail Bridge.
The trial run on the new Pamban Bridge was conducted immediately after the completion of the railway track work on the bridge connecting Mandapam and Pamban railway stations over the sea.
During the OHE trial run on the new bridge, the trial run with the OHE tower car was successfully completed in the presence of railway officials, PMC staff, B. Kamalakar Reddy, CPM CO ORD RVNL, Chennai, and T.K. Padmanabhan, CPM, RVNL, Chennai.
According to information received from the railway, after the success of the first trial run with the OHE tower car, more trial runs with freight carriers and empty coaches are likely to be conducted in the coming days.
The track laying work on the entire 2.08-kilometer stretch of the new bridge has been completed. Following this, the tower wagon was operated between the two stations. After the successful launch of the 72.5-meter vertical lift span on July 26, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited undertook the task of launching the remaining four girders.
A railway official said that all track laying work has been completed, and the continuity of the track was checked with the trial run. Now, only the commissioning of the vertical lift span remains. Work is being done on the electro-mechanical operation of the lift. The lift will be raised vertically up to 17 metres.
