The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) has completed construction of a 480-metre-long bridge over the Sabarmati River in Ahmedabad as part of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor.
Standing approximately 36 metres above the ground, the structure is comparable in height to a 12-storey building and is among the significant engineering works on the high-speed rail route in Ahmedabad.
The bridge lies between the Sabarmati and Ahmedabad bullet train stations, around 1 km from Sabarmati station and approximately 4 km from Ahmedabad station. Its design accommodates the river crossing while maintaining necessary clearance from existing infrastructure nearby, including railway lines, flyovers, bridges and metro corridors.
One of the engineering challenges was the presence of the Ahmedabad-Delhi railway line, which is around 14.8 metres above ground level. This required the bridge piers to be designed with additional height to maintain the prescribed clearance.
The bridge rests on eight circular piers measuring between 6 and 6.5 metres in diameter. Four piers stand within the riverbed, while two are positioned on the riverbanks and two beyond the banks. Their arrangement has been planned to minimise obstruction to the river’s water flow.
The structure also uses longer spans than many other river bridges along the bullet train corridor. While several bridges typically have spans of around 40 metres, the Sabarmati bridge incorporates five 76-metre spans and two 50-metre spans. This configuration helped reduce the number of supports required within the river.
NHSRCL constructed the bridge using the Balanced Cantilever Method, which is suited to long-span structures over waterways. Bridge segments were cast at the site and progressively assembled from the piers, with post-tensioning used to connect them. Each span comprises 23 segments, requiring detailed engineering and quality checks throughout construction.
The Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor will feature 25 river bridges—21 in Gujarat and four in Maharashtra. With the Sabarmati bridge now completed, 18 of Gujarat’s 21 planned river bridges have been finished.
Source: The Indian Express
