Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge Explained

Bridge Name:	Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge
Carries:	Kharagpur-Puri line, Howrah-Chennai main line
Crosses:	Mahanadi River
Locale:	Cuttack
Open:	2008
Coordinates:	20.4852°N 85.9105°W

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 100abbr=offNaNabbr=off each, on wells 19feet in diameter sunk to 60abbr=inNaNabbr=in 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 2.1km (01.3miles) long Second Mahanadi Rail Bridge built at a cost of 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]

See also

• List of longest bridges in the world
• List of longest bridges above water in India

Notes and References

1. Web site: East Coast Railway . 2011-07-06.
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. News: Second rail bridge over Mahanadi commissioned . https://web.archive.org/web/20081010023746/http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/27/stories/2008072756890300.htm . dead . 10 October 2008 . 2011-07-06 . Chennai, India . . 27 July 2008.