Kottayam: Railways shelves plan to demolish Railway over Bridge

Kottayam: The Railways temporarily dropped its plan to demolish the iconic Nagampadom Railway Over Bridge here on Saturday after two failed attempts with a controlled explosion.

The first attempt was around 11 am. But the electric detonator malfunctioned.

The second attempt around 5 pm failed to produce the desired result., prompting the authorities to drop the plans for the day. Officials said a final decision on demolishing the RoB would be taken after a review of the two attempts.

The Railways also decided to allow rail traffic through Kottayam after evaluating the risk factors. They said the engineering division had given clearance for this.
The train services from Kottayam remained disrupted from the morning. Most passenger trains on the route were cancelled for the day while mail and express trains took the Alappuzha route to avoid the debris from the demolished cluttering the tracks.

Hundreds of people thronged the Nehru Stadium to witness Tirupur-based Mag Infra Projects demolishing the RoB by filling explosive materials in different positions.