British-era construction to 2023 floods — Delhi’s Old Yamuna bridge has been a witness to changing India
Known as 'lohe ka pul' in common parlance, the iron truss bridge was built in 1863 as part of a railroad link between Delhi & Calcutta. Now submerged in Yamuna, it waits for the flood to recede.
British-era construction to 2023 floods — Delhi’s Old Yamuna bridge has been a witness to changing India
New Delhi: Over the mighty Yamuna and connecting Delhi’s old quarters to its Shahdara district and the outskirts of the national capital beyond that is a 160-year-old iron truss bridge that now stands submerged in floodwaters. It’s been three days since the Yamuna, in all her fury, rose dangerously, washing into many parts of Delhi, including areas such as posh Civil Lines.
The Old Yamuna Bridge, known locally as lohe ka pul (iron bridge) or Bridge Number 249 in railway parlance, is waiting for the floodwater to recede.
Built by the East Indian Railway Company as part of a railroad link between Delhi and the then capital Calcutta in 1863, the Old Yamuna Bridge was regarded as an architectural marvel. The 2,640 feet bridge consists of 12 spans, all measuring 202.5 feet each, and is the first bridge of its kind in north India, according to Indian Railways officials, who also claim it to be one of the oldest standing bridges in the country.
This isn’t the first time that the bridge has found itself submerged under Yamuna’s waters, however, according to Chaube Singh, a 67-year-old man from Bihar, who says he has been guarding the bridge for the better part of the decade. The Victorian-era bridge, which stands as a connection between India’s past and its present, withstood five floods — 1956, 1967, 1971, 1975, 1978, says Singh, the bridge guard on contractual employment with the railways.
Once the only link between Delhi and Calcutta, the double-decked bridge with a walkway at the bottom continues to serve to this day, seeing an average railway traffic of 90 trains each day, according to railway officials.
Standing in the backyard of the Red Fort, it has witnessed several critical chapters of India’s modern history, such as the British rule, India’s independence movement, the birth of a new country, and, eventually, the last major flood in Delhi in 1978, when Yamuna’s waters rose to 207.49 metres.
Construction of the bridge was overseen by George Sibley, chief engineer of the northwest province of the East Indian Railway Company who is also credited with the Naini Bridge in Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) and the old Delhi railway station, George Huddlestone, former superintendent of East India Railway, writes in his book History of the East Indian Railway. The book was published in 1902.
It wasn’t only the railways that found the bridge useful — the walkway under the bridge could be used to cross the river. Before its construction, travellers would have to use a pontoon bridge — specialised shallow draft boats or floats tied together to help cross a river or canal. This proved particularly tricky to use in the monsoon, when the Yamuna waters rose.
“Until the 1860s, when the bridge came up, there was only a bridge of boats across the Yamuna, and that too was seasonal, because it used to be dismantled in the monsoon, or it would have been washed away,” Swapna Liddle, a historian who specialises in Delhi’s history, told media.
She added: “During monsoon, one could only cross the river by ferry. Even after the first railway line to Delhi was constructed in 1864, people had to disembark at Shahdara and travel over the bridge of boats to come into the city.”
According to Huddlestone, Albert Edward, then Prince of Wales and the eldest son of Queen Victoria, travelled to Delhi using the bridge on his visit to India in October 1875.
Mention the bridge and those living in the vicinity open a bag of memories and anecdotes — not all of them about the bridge, but connected to it somehow. Like the story of the watermelons, which is repeated by many old timers from the area.
“The Yamuna is a shallow river. There would be farmers living around the bridge, who would cultivate melons on the sandbars of the river,” said Delhi historian Sohail Hashmi.
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