The road overbridge, from where a girder fell on a train at Thane killing three and injuring several others would have been completed long ago had it not been for a change in plan by the railways in the drawing stage.

In January 2003, the then chief bridge engineer of Central Railway removed the support column in the middle from the drawing submitted for approval. Removal of the column altogether changed the construction and made it more complicated.

This was one of the points raised by Thane MLAs during a hearing by Sudhir Kumar, the commissioner of safety for railways at Thane on Monday.

MLAs Eknath Shinde, Rajan Vichare and Pratap Sarnaik contended that had this column been retained, the bridge would have been completed easily without disturbing train traffic below.

Due to placement of tracks, in the drawing the support column was not at the centre of the bridge but more towards the eastern side dividing the bridge into two unequal halves in the ratio of 12 to 31. On the west of the column are four functional tracks, while on the east was space for the proposed two tracks of the Kurla-Thane corridor. With the columns in place the girders were in two sections — smaller measuring 12 metres and the bigger measuring 28.25 metres.

The work on the 12 metres section could have been carried out round the clock as there is no traffic beneath (fifth and sixth line are yet to commence and eight years ago it was merely on the drawing board). Whereas girders on the major section could have been constructed in one piece and lowered to its final position.

... contd.