The Western Railway (WR) will dismantle overhead cables from old foot overbridges (FoBs) in the next six months as part of its work on the sixth railway line from Mumbai Central to Borivli.
According to Hindustan Times, the load from such overhead cables had contributed to the collapse of Andheri’s Gokhale bridge in July 2018, an official report found. The Indian Railways has issued a tender to dismantle and re-route cables from old FoBs and related works in the Mumbai suburban section. A senior WR official told the leading daily, “We will study and re-route maximum of the cables and utilities that are going through the bridges and that will be dismantled. They all will be relocated.”
The Western Railway is conducting this work in order to lay down sixth railway line in the Mumbai Division of WR, which was approved in 2008-2009. This sixth railway line was introduced in Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP)-2B and aims to give railways a separate corridor to operate outstation trains. The Railways under MUTP-3A, is also working on the construction of fifth and sixth railway lines between Borivli and Virar stations.
