A team of railway officials headed by the chief bridge engineer inspected the Majerhat bridge along with their counterparts from the PWD on Monday to ascertain whether the structure has been built according to the design approved by the Centre and the Bengal government.

The team wanted to know from the PWD officials about their findings on the stress-bearing capacity of various components of the bridge and whether they were within the acceptable range.

“The central team was told about the dry load of the bridge (without any vehicle over it), the stress-bearing capacity of the cables and how much wind force the bridge can endure,” said a PWD official.

For every parameter, the railway team wanted to check whether there were any deviations from the set of fixed indices in the design.

The commissioner of railway safety has held several rounds of meetings to satisfy himself on all aspects of the cable-stayed structure over railway tracks, which replaces the structure that collapsed on September 4, 2018.

Monday’s inspection was in response to an invitation from the Bengal government before seeking an official clearance for the load test.

“The team will send a report to the state government,” the PWD official said. “The report will specify whether the railway will give clearance to carry out a load test of the structure.”

During a load test, empty and fully loaded vehicles are mounted on a bridge and the stability of the structure is monitored. Engineers calculate the load-bearing capacity of the structure and make note of how various elements are functioning.

PWD officials said the load test would take at least three days. This will be followed by certain formalities before the bridge is finally left open.