Watch: How India's first vertical lift bridge at Pamban will allow ships to pass

Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw shared an animated video of the soon-to-be operational and much awaited Pamban Bridge, India's first vertical lift sea bridge, which will connect Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu to the rest of the country.

“Heritage meets technology. Pamban Bridge connecting Rameswaram,” Vaishnaw tweeted with a clip describing how the bridge will work.

The 26-second video shows a train illustration passing through the bridge constructed over the Bay of Bengal. The bridge is a vertical-lift, which means it will allow ships and other modes of water transport to pass beneath the bridge. A lift-bridge is a type of movable bridge in which a span moves up vertically while remaining parallel with the deck.

Another train then passes through in the short clip after the lift comes down. The bridge will reportedly have 100 spans across the sea, lifting up 17 metres, facilitating smooth movement of ships underneath.

Take a look at the mechanism of how the bridge will work:
The new bridge, expected to be operational next year in December, will parallel the existing Pamban Bridge and have a total length of 2.078 km. Work on the new bridge began in February 2020 and the estimated cost was initially Rs 279.6 crore, but the budget went up eventually.