Tipu Sultan's 18th century armoury relocated near Srirangapatna railway station!!

Srirangapatna. Tipu Sultan's armory.Deccan Herald

Tipu Sultan's famous armory at Srirangapatna, Karnataka is a declared protected monument of the Department of Archeology and is close to the railway station. Because of its location in the area where second rail track is under way, the track doubling work is hampered for sometime -1.7 km rail line work pending roughly for a couple of years.  The Union government sanctioned Rs.13 crores for the translocation of the armory to another safer site and it has two fold purposes. It will help the railways complete  the Bengaluru-Mysuru rail track doubling work pretty soon and the protected monument will be preserved for the future generation. The railway line between Bengaluru and Mysuru is a busy one with the passing of 19 trains, including 13 express trains.

On 10 March 2017, the translocation work was successfully completed by South Western Railway through M/S PSL -Wolfe (JV) under supervision by Department of Archeology. The railways gave the job to the American company as India's technology with respect to shifting monument structures is inadequate. They moved the entire armory structure through the unified jacking system by employing jacks, iron rollers, iron poles and other items without damaging the heritage values of Tipu's armory. The crucial part in the early
stages is the careful excavation of the earth around the monument to make preparation for the diligent and delicate relocation of the 18th century structure. The destination of the 1000 plus ton structure is just a 100 meters away from the present location. The entire structure, including  foundation was mounted on a hydraulic ram  that moved 25 meters on the first day. Armory building is a single story load-bearing brick masonry structure with arch roofing and pyramidal shaped elevation that was built by Tipu between 1782 and 1799, to store mainly ammunition.

Tipu Sultan. Mpositive.in

Tipu's armoury on the move. Mpositive.in

Tipu's armoury relocation. topyaps.com

An official of the American company mentioned that they had not moved any structure bigger  than the armory in the United States, and Tipu's armory was so strong a structure that neither the movement of trains nearby nor work with machines, had

I Tipu's armoury,Srirangapatna. Rail India infro

 developed cracks in it. In order to maintain the effectiveness of gun powder and  weapons, a mix of eggs with shells and jaggery was used  and  it worked well in all weather conditions.

This amazing engineering feat of shifting a 228 year old monument to a safer location without any damage to the structure is first of its kind in India. The 12 meter wide and 12 meter high armory played a vital role during the Angelo -Mysore war and Tipu used this armory to use the ammunition against the British. The relocation work involved 70 workers and six from the US.

http://www.ndtv.com/karnataka-news/tipu-sultans-armoury-starts-rolling-will-shift-to-new-location-later-today-1667266