c. 1940s: A Rare Video Showing Railway and Bridges construction work in Sukkur - Rohri - Pakistan. Lansdowne Bridge, the longest rigid girder bridge in the world at that time, construction began in 1887.It was designed by Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel; 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.
The bridge provided the railway link between Lahore, in the heart of the granary of British India, and the port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea.
When the great steel Ayub arch was constructed (1960–1962), railway traffic was shifted there. About a hundred feet apart, the two bridges seem like one from a distance. The Ayub arch became the world's third longest railway arch span and the first bridge in the world to have "the railway desk slung on coiled wire rope suspenders." The consulting engineer was David B. Steinman[2] of New York, proponent of 'vocational aesthetics'. It cost about two crore rupees and the foundation stone was laid on December 9, 1960. It was opened by President Muhammad Ayub Khan on May 6, 1962.
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