New Pamban Railway Bridge completed in five years' time, poised for inauguration by PM soon

Constructed by the Southern Railway Zone to connect Rameswaram Island to mainland India in Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram district, the new bridge was completed in five years' time.

The new Rs 531 crore Pamban Railway Bridge here, India’s lone vertical lift bridge, featuring a vertical lift span of 72.5 metres, is completed and poised for inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon, an official said on Friday.

Constructed by the Southern Railway Zone to connect Rameswaram Island to mainland India in Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district, the new bridge was completed in five years’ time.”This bridge is ready for inauguration. Everything is ready, just waiting for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come and inaugurate it,” an official told PTI, adding that the PM could inaugurate it by February end.

Stretching up to a length of 2.1 km, the bridge was commissioned in February, 2019, and was completed in November, 2024. The weight of the vertical lift span of the bridge, part of the bridge which rises up vertically, is 660 MT.Two counterweights of 310 MT each hang on top of either towers of the bridge, which are augmented by motors to add the additional 40 MT weight needed to match the 660 MT weight of the vertical lift span during the lifting operation, said the official.As many as 3.38 lakh cement bags, 4,500 MT of structural steel and 5,772 MT of reinforcement stainless steel, among other materials were used to erect the new bridge, whose towers rise up to a maximum height of 34 metres.

The engineering marvel, designed to last more than a century, can raise its vertical lift span to a height of 17 metres when large fishing boats pass underneath, through the Palk Strait. It takes five minutes and 30 seconds to lift the vertical lift span to the height of 17 metres.According to the Southern Railway, the sub-structure of the bridge was built and equipped in such a way that a double line can also be laid over it with electrification when needed.Unlike the old Pamban Bridge built by the Britishers, which required 16 persons to manually open it upwards when boats passed beneath, the new one is seamlessly operated by an electro-mechanical system, which is also interlocked with train control systems for the separation of the navigational span.To withstand the corrosive seawater of the Bay of Bengal and the powerful water currents passing through the Palk Strait, the painting scheme included two coats of zinc metallizing, epilux zinc rich primer and polysiloxane. The painting scheme is expected to last 35 years.

According to officials, the new bridge can handle up to 12 trains a day initially, which can be increased while the authorised maximum train speed is 75 km per hour.The old Pamban Bridge was commissioned for metre gauge traffic on February 24, 1914. It was further strengthened for broad gauge standard. The last train that passed over the old bridge was in 2022.