Pamban Bridge: Railways to complete India’s first vertical lift sea bridge by March 2022

The Ministry Of Railways announced on Sunday that the construction work of the new 2.05 km Pamban railway bridge in Mandapam, which will connect Rameswaram to the mainland in Tamil Nadu, will be completed by March 2022. It is set to be India’s first vertical lift railway bridge over the sea.

The Ministry of Railways took to Twitter and wrote:

The sea bridge is being developed by Railway Vikas Nigam (RVNL) at the cost of Rs 250 crores. The foundation stone for the project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2019 at Kanyakumari. The bridge will allow the Indian Railways to operate trains at a higher speed with more weight. It will also increase traffic between the mainland of Pamban and Rameswaram. It will have 100 spans of 18.3 meters and one navigational span of 63 meters. The existing Pamban Rail Bridge, which connects Rameswaram to mainland India, is 105 years old.

Pamban Railway Bridge

The original Pamban railway bridge was built in 1914 to connect Mandapam to the Rameswaram island situated in the Gulf of Mannar. It was the only link connecting the two locations until a new road bridge was built parallel to the sea link in 1988. The Pamban bridge had flaps that would open to enable the movement of ferries. The conventional rail bridge resting on concrete piers had flaps in the middle, which could be lifted to allow ships and barges to pass through. However, the 105-year-old bridge is not suitable to speed up-gradation and the Railways Minister has decided to build a new bridge that will have a vertical shaft to allow for ferries to pass under when trains are not operating.

The Southern Railways operates trains from Rameswaram to various parts of the country. In 2019, arrangements were made to carry on the construction work even during the rainy season, an official had said. All equipment required for the work were brought to nearby Pamban. The Scherzer span in the existing bridge is operated manually to allow ships while the proposed facility would have electro-mechanical controlled systems which will be interlocked with train control systems, officials have said earlier.