Himalayan access

In the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India, a railway line is being constructed which will vastly improve access to the mountainous region near the border with Tibet – and mageba’s team in Kolkata is lending its expertise in providing sophisticated structural bearing solutions for some of the bridges along the route.

The ongoing project to create a new railway connection in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, from the city of Rishikesh to the town of Karnaprayag, will reduce the travel time along the 125-kilometer route from 6.5 to 2.5 hours, thanks to the 17 tunnels and 35 bridges along the way which make up an astonishing 85% of the distance. It will thus greatly improve access to the whole border region, and in particular to Badrinath Temple, one of India’s sacred Char Dham pilgrimage sites. The project is expected to be completed by 2025, at a total cost of approximately 162 billion rupees, or about two billion US dollars.

To support the superstructures of a number of the bridges along the route, while accommodating their movements and rotations, mageba has supplied a large quantity of bearings, including:

Fortunately, mageba’s subsidiary in Kolkata had all the expertise and experience required to design and manufacture the wide variety of bearing types needed to optimise the construction of the various bridge structures along the route – and to continue supporting the rapid development of India’s transportation infrastructure, even in the most remote parts of the country.

Bridge designers: L&T IEL, AECOM, Luis Berger, aarvee associates
Contractors: Rahee Infratech Limited, GPT Infraprojects Limited
Owner: Rail Vikas Nigam Limited

The construction of the Rishikesh – Karnaprayag Railway Line in northern India’s mountain state of Uttarakhand is a massive undertaking, with 85% of the 125-kilometer route comprising bridges and tunnels

The very different bridge structures along the route – a number of them already existing, and requiring renovation with bearing replacements – called for the use of very different bearing solutions

Some of the 50 LASTO®HDRB (high damping rubber bearing) seismic isolators as designed and fabricated by mageba for the new rail link

One of the 16 RESTON®CYLINDER bearings as designed and manufactured by mageba to support vertical loads of up to 23,000 kN – also featuring uplift protection

Design representation of the guided-sliding RESTON®FORCE horizontal force bearings as supplied for the new rail link – cut-out view showing how it allows rotations about all axes (including vertical)

A RESTON®FORCE horizontal force bearing of the fixed type (allowing no sliding movements), with plan dimensions of 2.1 m x 1.9 m, designed to resist horizontal forces of 23,800 kN

One of the 210 RESTON®SPHERICAL bearings fabricated for the new rail link – designed to additionally resist occasional uplift forces of up to 3,800 kN

All of the bearings were designed by mageba and fabricated in the company’s factory in Kolkata, with inspections by the client’s representatives as required