COVID-19 - Why Did Elephant Gate Bridge Demolished at MGR Chennai Central

The Elephant Gate Bridge near Chennai Central is set to become history. Starting 27th April 2020, Southern Railway has begun demolition of the 105 year old bridge between. Located between Basin Bridge Junction and Chennai Central stations the 105 year old Elephant Bridge acts as the entry/exit point for the trains coming in and going out of Chennai Central. The narrow bridge, just about 50 metres wide, allowed only about 8 lines to go under it.
Supporting Video - The Actual Demolition Video - • DEMOLITION Video Eleph...
Credits
Photos - www.railpost.in . I Also thank the editor for the excellent write-up acknowledge detailed info.
Video Credit
1. Railfan Archit - • Departure from Chennai... - Departure from Chennai Central!! Onboard 12603-Chennai-Hyderabad SF express.
Numbered by Southern Railway as Bridge 9R. With sprawling railway utilities on either side, the narrow bridge was acting as a chicken’s neck, often holding up various services and infuriating passengers. Even the construction of two additional slow lines for EMUs towards Arakkonam has only partially helped.
On one side of the bridge is the Basin Bridge station, Chennai Central Trip Loco Shed, Basin Bridge Coaching Depot and the now-defunct Salt Cotaurs Parcel Depot. On the other side is the sprawling Chennai Central station with 12 functional platforms and many parcel and other small sidings for parking short rakes, tourist coaches, and accident relief trains. The other side also has the Chennai Central Suburban terminal that has 5 platforms and a couple of extra lines to park idling EMUs.
The Railways had proposed to demolish the close to 105-year old bridge and build a new one for the Chennai Corporation. After long years of to and fro, Chennai Corporation accepted the proposal.
There was a further small delay in shifting a lot of utilities’ cables from the bridge. The Chennai Traffic Police had also barricaded the bridge and stopped all traffic for a few months now.
With all this work completed, and the lockdown preventing any traffic, Southern Railway is utilizing the time to demolish the bridge over a week beginning today. The officials have announced a slew of diversions and changes to the workmen and parcel specials over the next two days. The details are:
· Workmen specials will be dealt from Chennai Beach instead of Chennai Central, with rakes being maintained at Chennai Egmore.
· Most parcel specials will be diverted to Chennai Egmore.
“This new bridge will be about 150 metres wide - large enough to accommodate a large number of lines. This will eliminate the bottleneck and allow more simultaneous operations,” according to official sources. He also added, “hopefully, all the waiting for the passengers almost at the doorstep of the terminal station should be a thing of the past once the bridge is ready.”
The same hope is reflected by some regular passengers. “Most times, the Charminar Express from Hyderabad is well before time at Ennore and Tiruvottiyur. However, this bottleneck holds up the train and we end up reaching Chennai Central well after the scheduled arrival - a colossal waste of up to an hour,” says Sriram, a regular traveller.
Hopefully, the new bridge will end the woes of both the passengers and the Southern Railway officials in one fell swoop.
I am an avid traveler, like to see places of interest - Historic, Natural Beauty, Hindu Pilgrimage sites, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, popular tourist destinations. I capture what I am fascinated with and I also capture my journey by train, Rail Road, Ship, Air. I am fascinated by the uniqueness and diversity of the different modes of transportation.
My Camera Gear - I use different Cameras for different purposes. My TOP Camera for long Zoom and some fascinating 4K stuff it is Panasonic FZ 300. Canon G7X MKII is my ideal choice for wonderful Video logging and some night photos. For catching actions, scenes on the go, and some hard stuff to catch using normal camers I use GoPro - GoPro Session 5 and GoPro Hero Black. For on the spot, on the Go and unanticipated and unexpected catches I use my new iPhone XR / OnePlus 6.
Catch my Travel Experiences om my channel " Travel with Ram " - / @travelwithram