Marked a significant milestone in the dismantling of the railway portions of the Elphinstone bridge, the last two standing girders over the Western Railway tracks were removed on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, after a failed first attempt.
Overshooting the issued megablock of 1.30am to 6 am by just over half an hour, around 80 workers from the Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (MRIDC or MahaRail) and the Western Railway removed the two 32-metre-long girders — one weighing 28 tonnes and another 27 tonnes — using a 800-metric tonne crane.
The entire portion of the bridge going over the Western Railway tracks has now been removed and almost two-thirds of the 102-metre long railway bridge has been dismantled after the work began on December 31, 2025.
Dismantling of the bridge has been carried out in parts, with the panels of the bridge first being cut loose in the first phase, and being lifted up and kept aside by a crane in the second. This left only the steel structures running along the side of the bridge — called girders — to be removed.
Initially planned to be removed a week ago, the attempt failed due to a mechanical issue of the crane, involving a burst of the hydraulic pipe. No injury or damage was reported but the crane required repairs.
“The goal was to remove both the girders over the WR tracks, and we completed that,” said an MRIDC official.
An official from the contractor Space Chem Engineers Pvt Ltd, carrying out the work, said, “It went a little over the 6 am deadline, due to the challenges of the work. The northside girder weighed 28 tonnes, slightly more than the 22 tonnes we expected, but this was managed by the expertise of the crane operator. Cutting the second southside girder took a little longer than we expected.”
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While most of the WR tracks resumed operations before 6.30 am, the passing track between the WR and CR took till after 6.45 am to be functional.
What remains
The Elphinstone bridge was closed to traffic in September 2025, with the dismantling of railway portions beginning by the end of December. The deadline to dismantle the entire bridge was February.
What remains is the final and longest span of the bridge over the tracks of the Central Railway that is 37 metres long. Six of the eight panels — base of the bridge’s floor — are still intact. Even as work on the WR portions has been ongoing gradually, work over the CR tracks has been at a complete standstill over the past three months, due to the Central Railway’s reluctance in granting railway blocks for the work.
“The 800-MT crane on the CR side has been stationed since January end but it has only worked for a handful of days,” said the contractor. “Each month of keeping the crane at the site has cost us Rs 80 lakh, but due to the CR’s refusal to give us blocks, it has been standing idle.”
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Complications around the block rose due to the overhead electric (OHE). Due to the Elphinstone bridge’s low height, the OHE is connected with the bridge structure and work on the bridge requires dismantling and remounting of the OHE, all within hours of the railway block.
At the WR side, engineers arrived at the idea of making temporary arrangements for the OHE wire with temporary beams for support when the panels were removed. This work was being carried out in routine corridor blocks in the night — after the last train at 1.30am and before the first train at 4.30am.
“The CR was demanding a megablock of over six hours for the same work we were carrying out in 3 hours. But mega blocks are only available on the weekends, and for the six panels that are yet to be removed, this would take an additional six weeks. Another mega block would then be required for removing the final girders. This would delay us by a lot,” said the contractor.
“Another option the Central Railway was giving us was asking us to request a 9-plus hour block to remove most or the entire CR bridge. But a railway block over 9 hours means seeking permission from the Railway Board in Delhi and affecting hundreds of trains… We were already told there was no chance of such a long block before March 31,” the contractor added.
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With no other option, MRIDC and its contractor planned to wind down the CR side crane a week ago. In the following days, however, a meeting between the MRIDC managing director Rajesh Jaiswal, DRM of the CR Hiresh Mina and other CR officials resolved the issue, with CR finally relenting and agreeing to grant corridor blocks for the dismantling of the panels.
A CR block was scheduled on March 19 for the removal of a panel but the crane operators met with a road accident, stalling operations once again. With a deadline of September for the construction of the new double-decker railway bridge, the engineers are racing against time.
