History and Documentary of Sukkur Lansdowne Bridge in English

Описание: The Lansdowne Bridge is over the Indus at Sukkur was one of the great engineering feats of the 19th century. The longest cantilever bridge ever built, it had to support the load of heavy steam locomotives. The bridge was inaugurated on March 25, 1889. The Ayub Bridge was built immediately adjacent to the bridge in 1962, to separate the road and Railway traffic. Hence the photographs of the Landsdown Bridge usually also show the Ayub Bridge.

Design:
It was designed by Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel; he designed the Lansdowne Bridge Rohri at Sukkur over the Indus River, which when it was completed in 1889 was the largest cantilever bridge in the world. The girder work, weighing a massive 3,300 tons, was manufactured in London by the firm of Westwood, Baillie and erected by F.E. Robertson, and Hecquet. Upon completion, the bridge allowed for easier rail access between Sindh and Balochistan.

Background;
The Indus was bridged at Attock in 1887 and that allowed railways in India to run from the westernmost post of Khyber Pass to the eastern city of Calcutta.

India's rail link to the port of Karachi was however, still broken at the Indus flowing between the towns of Rohri and Sukkur. The Indus was not bridged between Kotri and Hyderabad either, therefore, trains ran on the Karachi-Jamshoro-Larkana-Sukkur route as early as 1879 and then they were ferried across to Rohri and vice versa on a river ferry.