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Ghenh Bridge restoration finished earlier than expected: Officially reconnecting the North-South rail route

After one day of reconnecting the North-South rail route, On May 26th morning, Minister of Ministry of Transportation – Mr. Truong Quang Nghia and Chairman of Provincial People’s Committee – Mr. Dinh Quoc Thai paid an official visit to the location and gave presents to the staffs and workers who were working there.​


During 3 month of construction, hundreds of engineers and workers were working continuously despite late night, early morning or bad weather. The pressure of deadline made everyone stressful but when seeing the first train to run safely on the new bridge, all the stress disappeared.
The North-South rail route reconnected at midnight.
At exact 0 am, June 25th. Viernam Railway (VR) had their running test on Ghenh Bridge with their 4 trailers train departed from Di An station (Binh Duong). The train was tested with 4 running speed: 5km/h, 15km/h and 30km/h.

After evaluating the test result, Ghenh Bridge was proven to meet the design standard. At 4 am, June 25th, the first train from Hanoi was ordered not to stop at Bien Hoa train station for the first time in 3 month to go straight through Ghenh Bridge to arrive at Sai Gon train station. It was a breath taking moment for all engineers and workers to see the train running through the bridge. “We were really worried when the train slowly went through the bridge, and overwhelmed when it left the bridge safely. Our hard working days finally pay off!” – Said Mr. Nguyen Van Lam, worker at Sai Gon Railway
Management Company (The rail track installation unit).
 
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Minister Truong Quan Nghia and Chairman Dinh Quoc Thai having a walking check on Ghenh Bridge.
Sharing the joy, many passengers in the train got up from their sleep and waved their hands through the windows to thank the workers who had worked hard to rebuild the core North-South railway.
Mr. Nguyen Van Nam (67 y/o) who has lived in Buu Hoa ward since he was a child and had a lot of memories with Ghenh bridge; shared that whenever he had free time, he went to the construction site to see how the bride reformed day by day. “The new bridge looks really wide, strong and high enough so that water transportations can travel freely underneath. The bridge will soon open for pedestrians and motorbikes, that means we will be able to travel through it again”, happily shared Mr. Nam.
Mr. Đoi Si Hung – Deputy Director General of VR happily shared: “Today is a really meaningful day for not only all the workers of the bridge construction but all so for the railway industry. During 96 days of rail network delay, all construction units had worked all day and night for 3 months which was considered an impossible time to rebuild the bridge but they did it! A brand new Ghenh bridge has become reality. From now on, the North-South rail route is reconnected, enabling North-South railway transportation once again.”
Rewarding the bridge construction units.
Minister Truong Quang Nghia, Chairman Dinh Quoc Thai and Mr Tran Van Nam – Secretary of Binh Duong Provincial Party Committee rewarded the construction units with gifts of encouragement; Union of Ministry of Transportation gave merits of honor to 2 groups and 20 individuals; General Director of Cienco 1 also rewarded the staffs, engineers and worker with 160 million VND to honor their hard working.
Designing and constructing simultaneously.
After the collapse of the old Ghenh Bridge, the new one was constructed from Apr 1st, 2016 following the order of the Prime Minister. Accordingly, all 3 arches were completely rebuilt; each arch is 75m long 13m high and 7m of vertical clearance (3m taller than the old one); to increase the height of roads in two ends of the bridge and the other properties such as Hiep Hoa underpass bridge, Bui Huu Nghia cross-cut, information systems, rail road signal systems, electric poles, pipe lines… on the bridge. Ministry of Transportation has just also implemented the decision to maintain and expand the train station, lengthen the train runway, add more runways to Bien Hoa train station, Ho Nai train station and Trang Bom train station. To upgrade the capability and service after the new Ghenh Bridge was complete.
 
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 The first train traveling on the new Ghenh Bridge
 
The construction was at first expected to be completed on Jul 15th, but the Prime Minister ordered to complete it 15 days earlier. “The Prime Minister’s order is really a hard one; so, as VR, we tried our best to complete it by using the method of designing and constructing simultaneously 24/24 despite harsh weather conditions. The construction was stuck closely to the plan every single day; therefore some categories were completed earlier than expected. The quality check was strictly implemented from the girder manufacturing in factory to the reinforce concrete, pile, post, abutment work at the construction site”, said Mr. Hung.
According to Mr. Nguyen Duy Thang, Deputy Director General of Civil Engineer Construction Company No. 1 (Cienco 1), unlike the other transportation constructions, the reconstruction of Ghenh Bridge required a complete replacement. However, the clearance work encountered a lot of difficulties due to the swift water flow and crowded water traffic on the river. ‘”Cienco 1 had to  send heavy duty barges and cranes with the capacity of hundreds of ton each from the nearby Ben Luc – Long Thanh highway construction site over for the clearance and construction. The company also sent their best work force, most innovated machines from their affiliates over for the construction”, said Mr. Thang.
According to Deputy Chairman of Provincial People’s Committee – Mr. Tran Van Vinh, the new Ghenh Bridge project was one of the provincial most important projects from the beginning and during the construction time, Dong Nai province had had their strict cooperation with the railway industry in clearance work and maintains safe water transportation around the bridge construction area. Thus, there would be no more delay in rail network after the bridge was complete, Bien Hoa train station would also no longer be overloaded as in the last 3 months. Ultimately, it would help maintain better traffic safety.
Minister of Ministry of Transportation – Mr. Truong Quang Nghia said the new Ghenh Bridge project was the project that the Prime Minister cared the most and gave a lot of orders to it. “The Ghenh Bridge collapse made the longest interruption to the North-South rail network and caused a huge damage to the economy, thus the faster we complete the restoration, the better. The project was completed 20 days earlier than the Prime Minister’s order, which is a huge joy and encouragement for the railway industry to gain back the trust of people after the accident”, said Mr. Nghia.
Ghenh Bridge restoration project milestones:
• 11:30 am Mar 20th, a barge hit one of Ghenh Bridge posts on Dong Nai river and 2 arches collapsed, fortunately there was no casualty. After the accident, the North-South rail network was completely down.
• Mar 23rd, the Prime Minister gave an urgent order to Ministry of Transportation and VR to reconstruct the new Ghenh Bridge with the total capital of 298.5 billion VND from the Central budget of 2016.
• Mar 31st, all units completed the clearance of 2 collapsed arches. Apr 1st – The new Ghenh Bridge construction was started.
• Apr 3rd, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc gave the order to reduce the construction time 15 days less to save 150 billion VND (The railway industry lost 10 billion VND each day due to the shutting down)
• Jun 24th, 3 new arches were completely linked.
• June 25th, Passenger Train TN1 was allowed to travel through the new Ghenh Bridge. The North-South railway was officially reconnected.
 
 
Gia Van
 

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