2-970-102 - /Heritage Images

The Sitter Viaduct, on the Appenzel Railway, 1856. '...the St. Gall and Appenzell Railway (the first constructed in Switzerland) was opened with great ceremony...This bridge is upwards of 550 feet in length: the three piers on which it is supported are of cast iron, wonderfully light, having numberless open interstices, through which may be seen the snow-capped Appenzell mountains and the timeworn rocks that line the side of the great abyss...It was indeed an exciting moment when the train reached the deep ravine, and the shrill notes of the whistle proclaimed that the heavily-laden carriages were about to pass for the first time over the lofty but light lacework (as it were) of the lattice-bridge. [It crosses the Sitter River] at a height of 200 feet above the level of the water...Then followed a procession devised by Mr. Hartmann, the chief engineer of the railway...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.