Delhi Metro installs prefab steel bridge at Rajouri Garden

In an engineering feat, the Delhi Metro has successfully placed in less than a week a 60 m-long steel metro bridge below its existing elevated concrete viaduct at Rajouri Garden, providing a vital link in the Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar corridor project of the network.
The prefabricated steel bridge, weighing 350 metric tonne, is located at the under-construction Rajouri Garden intersection of Line 7( Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar) of Phase III of the metro project.
"The existing Rajouri Garden metro station falls on Dwarka-Noida (Blue Line) which runs on the concrete viaduct above the bridge. And, now through this new steel structure, the metro rail will connect the under-construction Mayapuri and Rajouri Garden stations on Line 7 with the existing Blue Line," a senior DMRC official said.

Like interchanges existing at other places, the two Rajouri Garden stations (on Line 3 and Line 7) would be connected, maybe through travelators, but that would be finalised later, he said.
"This steel span was constructed to achieve the mandatory ground clearance of 5.50 m, which otherwise was not available with the conventional technique of building a box girder viaduct, as the Line 7 viaduct was going under the existing Line 3 (Dwarka-Noida).
"The height of Blue Line viaduct is 16.6 m from the road surface and Line 7 viaduct is at 5.73 m. We could not have used another concrete viaduct and therefore this bridge is an engineering feat," he added.

The various components and parts of the steel span were taken to the construction site and assembled in a systematic way.The steel span was pushed about 60 m to reach the final location. The pushing work was started on August 11 and was completed by August 17, the official said.
Usually, Delhi Metro uses spans of 31 m for construction of viaducts, but due to the presence of heavy traffic on the Ring Road, this mammoth steel span which is nearly double in length, has been used to connect the upcoming Rajouri Garden station with the viaduct, joining the line further to the upcoming Mayapuri station.