Piling Work Begins for Nagpur Metro’s Elevated Line on Wardha Road

After beginning work on the 4.5 km surface/at-grade section of Nagpur Metro’s 19.66 km north-south line in the MIHAN Airport area, work has now begun for constructing the elevated portion on Wardha Road (old highway NH-7) as well! The contract to build the viaduct of a 7.61 km elevated section of the line, officially called Reach-1, was awarded to NCC Ltd. on November 30 2015 and just a month later, they’ve started piling work for it. 🙂

This 7.61 km section includes stations at the Airport, Ujwal Nagar, Jai Prakash Nagar, Chatrapati Station and Ajni Square. The construction of these stations will be part of a separate contract for which the tendering process will begin shortly. The contract for the detailed design consultancy of these stations was recently awarded to L&T Infrastructure Engineering, so things are moving along quite nicely.

Alignment of New Airport to Ajni Square section of Nagpur’s Metro – view Nagpur Metro map

Ready to start piling work on Wardha Road – Photo Copyright: NMRCL

Excavated soil from piling on Wardha Road – Photo Copyright: NMRCL

To rehash from another post, piling work is the first step in construction and helps to build the elevated viaduct’s foundation. Typically 4-6 piles are built per pier as shown below:

Diagramatic representation of what goes into building a pillar for the metro – Courtesy: Civil Engineering Discoveries

This section of the line also includes a 3.41 km double-decker viaduct from Ajni Square to the Pride Hotel (Airport T-point) which the Nagpur Metro Rail Corp Ltd. designed in collaboration with the National Highways Authority of India. While automobiles will run on the first level, the metro line will run on the second which will be roughly 40 feet above the ground as demonstrated by the model below:

Model of Nagpur’s Double Decker Viaduct – Photo Copyright: Nagpur Today

The design of this section was inspired by the Jaipur Metro’s viaduct on Ajmer Road (see picture) and more images of the model can be viewed here.

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

– TMRG