India's first railway bridge, Pamban will soon be changed into a vertical lift bridge.
The new Pamban bridge will continue connecting Rameshwaram to the mainland as done by the old bridge. As per the railway reports, the work of the bridge is 84% completed. The fabrication of the vertical lift span girder is nearly completed, plus the track laying work is in progress.
In this new project the bridge is 2.078 km in length with an estimated cost of ₹279.63 crore. The bridge is said to have started reconstruction in February of 2020 and it was estimated to be completed by December last year. The speciality of the new bridge is its 72-meter-long vertical lift span, which can be lifted about 17 meters to allow the ships to pass below it.
The old Pamban had the 'Scherzer' rolling lift technology in which the bridge opens up horizontally, to let ships pass through. But the new bridge will lift vertically upwards, remaining parallel to the deck. It will be done using sensors at each end. The new bridge will help trains run at a higher speed, carry more weight and decrease the volume of traffic at Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi temples
While vertical lift bridges are being introduced in India for the first time, this concept was first introduced by The Hawthorne Bridge (in Portland, Oregon, U.S.), built in 1910. It is the oldest vertical-lift bridge in the world.
Pamban has the speciality of holding the record for the first railway bridge in India, and now it also holds the record for the first vertical lift sea bridge in India. This bridge opens doors for more innovative projects across India.
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