Pamban Bridge (1914)

The original Pamban Bridge — built 1911-14 and opened on 24 February 1914 — was India's first sea bridge and remained the only sea bridge in India for 88 years until the Bandra-Worli Sea Link opened in 2010. It carried single-line metre-gauge (later broad-gauge) railway traffic across the Palk Strait between Mandapam on mainland Tamil Nadu and the pilgrimage island of Rameswaram.

The bridge's signature feature was a 67 m Scherzer rolling-lift double-leaf central span — the lift mechanism used cast-iron rolling segments that rolled backward as each leaf rose, creating a clear navigation channel for sailing vessels and small steamers. The lift was operated manually by a team of railway workers using a counterweight-and-pulley system; later mechanised in the 1970s. At its peak, the bridge served the Boat Mail express linking Madras (Chennai) to Colombo via the steamer ferry from Dhanushkodi.

The bridge was severely damaged in the 1964 Rameswaram cyclone, which destroyed Dhanushkodi town and ended ferry-rail service to Sri Lanka. Repaired and gauge-converted, it served 50 more years before saltwater corrosion of its cast-iron screw piles forced closure in December 2022.

The new Pamban Bridge (2024) parallels the alignment with a vertical-lift replacement, but the original 1914 structure remains in place as a heritage relic and visible reminder of British-era engineering on the Indian coastline.