MGCPL Completes Mumbai – Ahmedabad Bullet Train’s CLC Bridge over NH-48

MG Contractors Pvt. Ltd. (MGCPL) has completed building a 260 meter long balanced cantilever (CLC) bridge south-east of Surat for the 508.17 km Mumbai – Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR Bullet Train) project.

This 4-span PSC bridge (GAD-11) over national highway NH-48 is located at Amadpore in Navsari District. It has a configuration of 50m + 80m + 80m + 50m. Its 104 segments with variable heights were cast onsite one-by-one to allow vehicular traffic on the roadway to pass by uninterrupted.

The bridge’s construction site (view on Google Maps) is located between Surat and Bilimora Bullet Train stations, just 13 km south of where MGCPL in October 2023 launched the project’s first open web girder (OWG) bridge across national highway NH-53. Vehicular traffic there was stopped for 2 days to safely push the bridge into position.

I had written about this bridge taking shape in October 2023 when its 3 massive hammer-head pier caps were on the verge of completion.

This CLC bridge at MAHSR’s chainage Km 241.640 was earlier part of Package P3 which was discharged by India’s National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) in 2020.

Its construction was absorbed into Package P1(B) which was awarded to MGCPL in 2021 with a contract value of Rs. 549 crore. Their scope includes building 4 PSC bridges and 7 steel truss bridges within Larsen & Toubro’s 237.1 km Package C4 (Vadodara – Zaroli village on MH/GJ border).

Similar cantilever bridges have been built for metro systems in India and exist over railways lines and roads in Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kochi, Nagpur, and Ahmedabad.

Here’s a brilliant video demonstrating how balanced cantilever bridges are constructed:

The entire MAHSR project will apparently consist of 6 cantilever bridges. The location of the other 5 remain unknown to me. If someone is aware, then please leave a comment below for my and everyone else’s awareness.

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– TMRG