Exactly 100 years ago during the British era, Mumbai got two road over bridges -- Frere and Delisle -- crisscrossing the rail lines on the Western Railway. Circa 2021, the two bridges will be ready in its new avatar as work on its rebuilding and placing of girders will be ready. Both these ROBs were demolished after they were found to be unsafe after a safety audit done by IIT-B.
To begin with, the Frere bridge built in 1921 is between Grant Road and Charni Road. It will be ready by May this year. Sources in Western Railway said that they will be completing the work on laying the steel girders in the next three months. These girders are 25 meters long and are lot sturdier plus taller than from the rail lines.
Confirming the same Chief PRO Sumit Thakur said that the Frere bridge will be ready before monsoon. The BMC will be completing the works on the approach roads of this bridge that connects Nana Chowk and Lamington Road.
Likewise work on Delisle bridge is also going at a good pace. The engineers of WR stated that this bridge is lot trickier whose overall span is 89 meters and width of 16 meters. "This bridge will skew at 64 degrees and weigh 1100 metric tonnes. It will consist of 11 meter wide, 3-lane on each side dual carriageway with 2m wide footpath," said a WR official.
The work on the approach road of Delisle bridge will continue this year and by May, the portion over rail lines will be ready.
The WR has also completed the rebuilding work on the west side of Delisle ROB at Lower Parel station. The foundation work on the east side was completed in May 2020 and the completion of raft foundation work on the west side in June 2020. The rebuilding of the Railway portion of ROB costs Western Railway Rs 87 crore whose work started in 2019 end.
Meanwhile the Central Railway has also done their bit to construct ROBs. Like in Kalwa, the work has resumed after land acquisition was done after paying Rs 40 crore. Sources said that as of October 2020, majority work completed on the west side while on the east side out of five spans of 25 meters each, girders of three spans have been launched.
At Diva, joint inspection was done last year. There is a pond on the east side that needs to be filled plus other rearrangements to be done. Sources in CR said that tenders have been awarded for fabrication of girders. "And if all goes well, then we will try to complete the railway portion by December this year," said a CR official.
