The Railway Board has directed a review of all rail bridges in the country after it was found that out of 275 such bridges, only 23 had speed restrictions on them. Earlier, the Board had sought details of the conditions of these bridges and found out that trains would pass on the 252 rickety bridges with their normal speed which was definitely hazardous.
As per Board’s order, “ CBEs (Chief Bridge Engineers) should specifically review the position in respect of all bridges… and firm up the action plan for their rehabilitation on priority.”
Indian Railways has three ratings for its bridges- Overall Rating Number (ORN) 1, 2 and 3. Bridges with ORN 1 need building or rehabilitation immediately, bridges with ORN 2 need a rebuilt on the programmed basis and bridges with ORN 3 need special repairs.
“It seems that proper time-bound planning has not been done by the Railways for rehabilitation of these bridges which creates a doubt whether correct condition rating appropriate to the actual condition of the bridge has been assigned or not,” said the board’s order last month.
As per the Railway Board, a large number of bridges requiring rehabilitation existed on some zonal railways for long. There are 61 such bridges in Central Railways, 63 at East Central Railways, 41 at South Central Railways and 42 at Western Railways that require rebuilding.
The board also said, that in most cases, no speed restriction has been imposed and no special inspection schedule has been prescribed by the chief bridge engineers.
