Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge

Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge
Coordinates20°29′07″N 85°54′38″E / 20.4852°N 85.9105°E / 20.4852; 85.9105
CarriesKharagpur-Puri line, Howrah-Chennai main line
CrossesMahanadi River
LocaleCuttack
Characteristics
Total length2,100 metres (6,900 ft)
History
Opened2008
Location
Map

The Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge is a rail bridge over the Mahanadi near Cuttack in the Indian state of Odisha.

The first Mahanadi Rail Bridge was opened on 1 January 1899. It had 64 spans of 100 feet (30 meters) each, on wells 19 ft 6 in (5.94 meters) in diameter sunk to 60 ft (18 meters) below low water level.[1] The Engineer in Charge of construction of the first Mahanadi Rail Bridge was William Beckett, who won a gold medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1901 for a paper he presented on the bridge construction.[2]

The 2.1 km (1.3 mi) long Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge built at a cost of 120 crore (US$14 million) was commissioned in 2008. The bridge has been designed for a train speed of 160 km per hour (99.41 miles per hour). Adequate steps have been taken to withstand quake.[3]

  1. ^ "East Coast Railway". Retrieved 6 July 2011.
  2. ^ The Bridges over the Orissa Rivers on the East Coast Extension of the Bengal – Nagpur Railway, W. T. C. Beckett, M. Inst. C.E., Paper No. 3250, 1901
  3. ^ "Second rail bridge over Mahanadi commissioned". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 27 July 2008. Archived from the original on 10 October 2008. Retrieved 6 July 2011.