Old Bengbu Huai River Railway Bridge, Railway bridge in Bengshan District, China.
The Old Bengbu Huai River Railway Bridge carries the Beijing–Shanghai railway over the Huai River between Bengshan and Longzihu districts, 1.9 km south of Bengbu Station. Its steel truss spans rest on concrete piers; the bridge was extended north by 11 spans in 1987–1988 to a total length of 930.27 m. A parallel double-track bridge built alongside in 2002 forms the Bengbu Huai River railway bridge pair.
Construction began in December 1909 and the bridge opened on 15 May 1911, after 17 months of work by over 1,000 railway workers from Tangshan and more than 20,000 peasants from northern Anhui. It was then the second-largest bridge on the Tianjin–Pukou railway, after the Luokou bridge in Jinan. In 1938 and 1949 it was blown up to block advancing armies and each time rebuilt.
Locals call Bengbu "the city pulled by trains", and the bridge is its emblem: after it opened in 1911 the town grew from about 500 households to 100,000 by the 1930s and 300,000 by 1947. A monument at the south end, built on 1 July 1949, lists six railway corps divers who died building the temporary crossing and repairing the main bridge.
The bridge is best viewed during daylight hours when train traffic is visible and the structure stands out clearly. Visitors can approach the bridge from either bank of the river to see it from different angles.
The bridge's steel trusses were bought from the Redheugh company in Scotland, while its pneumatic caissons were made at Shanghai's Jiangnan Shipyard. Most other materials were sourced within China, and the whole bridge cost under 1 million silver dollars, saving over 100,000 against the original budget.
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