J Kumar Begins Launching Segments for Ahmedabad Metro

On this past Friday night, J Kumar Infraprojects started launching precast segments in the Nirant Cross Roads area to construct a portion of Ahmedabad Metro’s viaduct! This activity started exactly a year after they won the contract to build the 6 km Vastral Gam to Apparel Park section of the Metro’s 20.536 km east-west line.

Alignment of the Ahmedabad Metro between Apparel Park and Vastral Gam – view Ahmedabad Metro map

First segment to be launched for Ahmedabad’s Metro – Photo Copyright: Gyanander Sharma

More segments were launched on Saturday – Photo Copyright: Yogesh Patel

Each segment weighs 40 tons and usually 10 segments are required to build one span between two adjacent piers. For this section, J Kumar will launch roughly 2100 segments for the viaduct on Vastral & Amraiwadi roads by the end of 2017.

Here’s a quick recap of all the activities that went into making this possible. Check out the links for details & images.

• October 2015 – Started casting segments at the precast yard in Vastral Gam 
• December 2015 – Started building a steel support frame for the launching gantry crane
• January 2016 – Started erecting parts of the launching gantry crane

Here’s a brilliant 1 minute video which I recently shared on Twitter of how the launching gantry works its magic with precast segments one by one to build modern segmental viaducts/bridges:

For more updates on Ahmedabad’s Metro, check out the Ahmedabad section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG