Howrah Bridge
22°35′07″N 88°20′49″E / 22.58528°N 88.34694°E
The Howrah Bridge is a bridge that spans the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. It was originally named the New Howrah Bridge because it links the city of Howrah to its twin city, Kolkata (Calcutta). On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu, after Rabindranath Tagore a great poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate. However it is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.
The bridge is one of the four on the Hooghly River and is a famous symbol of Kolkata and West Bengal. The other bridges are the Vidyasagar Setu (popularly called the Second Hooghly Bridge), the Vivekananda Setu and the newly built engineering marvel Nivedita Setu. Apart from bearing the stormy weather of the Bay of Bengal region, it successfully bears the weight of a daily traffic of approximately 80,000 vehicles [1] and, possibly, more than 1,000,000 pedestrians. It is the sixth longest bridge of its type in the world.[2]
In 1862, the Government of Bengal asked George Turnbull, Chief Engineer of the East India Railway Company to study the feasibility of bridging the Hooghly River — he had recently established the company's rail terminus in Howrah. He reported on 29 March with large-scale drawings and estimates that:[3]
- The foundations for a bridge at Calcutta would be at a considerable depth and cost because of the depth of the mud there.
- "The impediment to shipping would be considerable".
- A good place for the bridge was at Pulta Ghat "about a dozen miles north of Calcutta" where a "bed of stiff clay existed at no great depth under the river bed".
- He recommended and designed a suspended-girder bridge of five spans of 400 feet and two spans of 200 feet.
The bridge was not built.
The modern bridge
Construction of the New Howrah Bridge was started on 1937. The Cantilever Era was prevailing at that time, and engineers felts that cantilever bridges were more rigid than suspension bridges. This bridge is one of the finest cantilever bridges in the world - left to India by the British engineers.
Considering various aspects like navigational, hydraulics, tidal conditions of the river and the projected traffic conditions, Rendel Palmer & Tritton came up with a design for a cantilever bridge of 1500 feet, with a 71 feet wide roadway and two 15 feet wide cantilever footways. Considering the quotation from various firms, the contract was awarded to Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Co. Ltd of Darlington, with a strong recommendation that they use Indian-made steel, which they agreed to do. Out of the total 26,500 tons of steel used, Tata Iron and Steel Company supplied 23,500 tons of steel and fabrication was done by Braithwaite, Burn and Jessop Co. at four different shops in Calcutta.
The two huge caissons which was sunk (on the first stage of construction) is still the biggest ever sunk caisson on land. It is told that while clearing the muck, all kinds of curious things was brought up, which included anchors, grappling irons, cannons, cannon balls, brass vessels, variety of coins. 40 Indian crane drivers were trained on the job and worked in three shifts of 8 hours each. The job of sinking the caisson were carried out round-the-clock at a rate of a foot or more per day.
One night, while grabbing out the muck to enable the caisson to move, the ground below it yielded and the entire mass plunged down two feet, shaking the ground. The impact of this shake was so intense that the seismograph at Khidirpore had registered as earthquake and a Hindu temple on the shore was destroyed; which was subsequently rebuilt. In spite of these challenging situations the caissons were placed true to position.
To keep the water out at depth of 103 feet (31 m) around the foundations so that construction can be done, around 500 people were employed on the compressed air operation. The air pressure maintained was about 40 lbs per square inch (2.8 bar). The work on the foundation was completed on November 1938. By the end of 1940 the erection of the cantilever arms was commenced and was completed in mid-summer of 1941. The two halves of the suspended span, each 282 feet (86 m) long and weighing 2,000 tons, were built in December 1941. 16 hydraulic jacks, each of 800 ton capacity were pressed in to service for joining the two halves of the suspended span.
After completing the steel work of the deck and concreting of roadway. the New Howrah Bridge was finally opened to traffic on February 1943. The old Floating Pontoon Bridge was decommissioned. In May 1946, census of the daily traffic on the bridge was taken and it was found to be 27,400 vehicles, 121,100 pedestrians and 2,997 cattle. The rate of only vehicle traffic over the bridge was 20% more than that on the London Bridge, in the same period, which was till then the busiest bridge in the metropolis.
The final cost of the bridge amounted to ₤2,500,000.
Description
The New Howrah Bridge was built between 1937 and 1943 and had a single 450 m span. It is technically a cantilever truss bridge, constructed entirely by riveting, without nuts or bolts. It is currently used as a road bridge, but previously had a tram route as well. The bridge also has sister bridges over the river at different points, namely the Vidyasagar Setu and the Vivekananda Setu.
Howrah Bridge is the gateway to Kolkata. Built on the Hooghly River, its original purpose was to facilitate military transportation between Kolkata and the industrial town of Howrah during World War II. It remains a cantilever bridge connecting the city to its main railway station, the Howrah Station, one of the busiest railway stations of the world.
The bridge is 705 metres long and 30 metres wide. More than 26,500 MT of high-tensile steel went into this unique bridge supported by two piers, each nearly 90 meters above the road. An engineering marvel, it expands as much as a metre during a summer day. The eight-lane bridge carries a steady flow of approximately 80,000 vehicles, and possibly more than 1,000,000 pedestrians and thousands of cattle every day. Its best view is from the middle of the river (but photography there is prohibited). The ferries running from below the Howrah Station another way to cross the river and view the bridge.
Technical details
| Details [4] | |
|---|---|
| Built | 1937—1943 |
| Location | Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Current status | In use |
| Crosses | Hooghly river |
| Type | Balanced Cantilever Suspension |
| Usage | Road bridge |
| Daily Traffic | 150,000 vehicles, possibly more than 200,000 pedestrians |
| Builders | |
| Material | Steel |
| Tower height | 82 m |
| Number of spans | 3 |
| Length of spans | 99.125 m
457.50 m 99.125 m |
| Length of drop-in span | 172.08 m |
In popular culture
Cinema
- Howrah Bridge was the title of a 1958 Bollywood film directed by Shakti Samanta.
- It featured in Mrinal Sen's 1959 Bengali film Neel Akasher Neechey.
- It featured in Shakti Samanta's 1971 Bollywood film Amar Prem.
- It featured in Mrinal Sen's 1972 National Award winning Bengali film Calcutta 71.
- It featured in Nicolas Klotz's 1988 English language film The Bengali Night.
- It featured in British Academy Award nominated director Roland Joffé's 1992 English language film City of Joy (film).
- It featured in German Academy Award winning director Florian Gallenberger's 2004 Bengali language film Shadows of Time.
- It featured in Pradeep Sarkar's 2005 Bollywood film Parineeta.
- It featured in Subhrajit Mitra's 2008 Bengali film Mon Amour: Shesher Kobita Revisited.
- It featured in Mani Ratnam's 2004 Bollywood film Yuva.
- It featured in Surya Sivakumar's 2009 Tamil flim Aadhavan.
See also
References
- ^ http://howrahbridgekolkata.nic.in/Traffic%20Flow.xls | title=Traffic Flow | date=1999 |accessdate=2009-05-03Traffic Flow Data from the Bridge's website
- ^ Durkee, Jackson (1999-05-24), National Steel Bridge Alliance: World's Longest Bridge Spans (PDF), American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc, retrieved 2009-01-02
- ^ Diaries of George Turnbull held in Cambridge University, England.
- ^ Howrah Bridge at Structurae
External links
