HOWRAH BRIDGE
HOWRAH BRIDGE
Howrah Bridge may be a propped bridge with a suspended span over the Hooghly stream in West Bengal, India. Commissioned in 1943, the bridge was originally named the New Howrah Bridge, as a result of it replaced a bridge at identical location linking the 2 cities of Howrah and Calcutta (Calcutta). On fourteen June 1965 it absolutely was renamed Rabindra Setu when the nice Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, UN agency was the primary Indian and Asian Nobel Laureate. it's still popularly called the Howrah Bridge. The bridge is one in all four on the Hooghly stream and may be a famed image of Calcutta and West Bengal. the opposite bridges square measure the Vidyasagar Setu (popularly known as the Second Hooghly Bridge), the Vivekananda Setu, and therefore the freshly designed Nivedita Setu. It weathers the storms of the Bay of geographical area region, carrying a daily traffic of approximately 100,000 vehicles and possibly more than 150,000 pedestrians, easily making it the busiest cantilever bridge in the world.
The third-longest cantilever bridge at the time of its construction, the Howrah Bridge is currently the sixth-longest bridge of its type in the world. 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: 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". A suspended-girder bridge of five spans of 400 feet and two spans of 200 feet would be ideal. The bridge was not built. In view of the increasing traffic across the Hooghly river, a committee was appointed in 1855-56 to review alternatives for constructing a bridge across it. The plan was shelved in 1859-60, to be revived in 1868, when it was decided that a bridge should be constructed and a newly appointed trust vested to manage it. The Calcutta Port Trust was founded in 1870,and the Legislative department of the then Government of Bengal passed the Howrah Bridge Act in the year 1871 under the Bengal Act IX of 1871, empowering the Lieutenant-Governor to have the bridge constructed with Government capital under the aegis of the Port Commissioners.
The Howrah Bridge Act of 1871 Eventually a contract was signed with Sir Bradford Leslie to construct a pontoon bridge. Different parts were constructed in England and shipped to Calcutta, where they were assembled. The assembling period was fraught with problems. The bridge was considerably damaged by the great cyclone on 20 March 1874. A steamer named Egeria broke from her moorings and collided head-on with the bridge, sinking three pontoons and damaging nearly 200 feet of the bridge. The bridge was completed in 1874, at a total cost of ₹2.2 million, and opened to traffic on 17 October of that year. The bridge was then 1528 ft. long and 62 ft. wide, with 7-foot wide pavements on either aspect. ab initio the bridge was sporadically unfastened to permit steamers and alternative marine vehicles to submit to. Before 1906, the bridge accustomed be undone for the passage of vessels throughout daytime solely. Since June of that year it started gap at the hours of darkness for all vessels except ocean steamers, that were needed to submit to throughout daytime. From nineteen August 1879, the bridge was light by electrical lamp-posts, supercharged by the generator at the Mullick stairway pump house. because the bridge couldn't handle the quickly increasing load, the Port Commissioners started coming up with in 1905 for a replacement improved bridge.
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