Anti-Silverline activists cite the 4.62-km-long railway bridge, the longest such structure in India and part of the 8.86-km railway line that was commissioned between Edappally and the Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal, and the flawed rehabilitation of families as an apt example of lopsided priorities of those in power, what with an average of one train passing through the rail corridor per week.
They draw parallels between shoddy patronage for this dedicated rail line whose bridge works alone cost ₹350 crore in 2010, and the proposed ₹63,000-crore Silverline semi-high-speed rail project that has been envisaged between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod.
The environmental cost of the bridge can be assessed from the fact that each of the 1.2-diametre piles were driven to an average depth of 55 metres and the total pile length was 65,000 metres. Another 11,700 tonnes of reinforced steel, 58,000 tonnes of cement, 99,000 cubic metres of metal aggregate, 73,500 cubic metres of sand, 1,27,000 cubic metres of concrete work and 1,54,308 cubic metres of earth work went into building the railway line.
