3-008-761 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Span of a large iron lattice-bridge to cross the River Jumna, near Delhi, 1862. 'Messrs. Ormerod, Grierson, and Co., of the St. George's Ironworks, Hulme, in Manchester, have just completed the first of a series of twelve spans...The bridge is for the East India Railway Company, and is from designs by A. M. Rendel. It is so constructed as to answer the double purpose of a railway and an ordinary road, the railway being along the top and the roadway beneath it...It is an unusual feature in this structure that none of the rivet holes are punched. Multiple drilling-machines, five in number, were constructed specially...The pressure upon the drills is maintained by two hydraulic rams...We understand that the Messrs. Cochrane, of the Woodside Ironworks, Dudley, were the first who applied this ponderous machinery to bridge-building...The iron has been supplied by the Shelton Bar Iron Company, near Stoke, and was required to bear a tensile strain of 21 tons to the inch of section. The breaking-strain is estimated at from 2500 to 3000 tons, equally distributed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.