111-Year-Old Scherzer Span of Pamban Rail Bridge Set to Be Dismantled

The historic 111-year-old Scherzer span of the Pamban old rail bridge, a British-era engineering landmark, will soon be dismantled after decades of service.

Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), which recently built the new Pamban rail bridge, has invited bids for removing the 225-foot-long double-leaf Scherzer span, commissioned on February 24, 1914. The tender submission deadline is September 9, and officials expect work to be awarded within ten days. The contractor will be given one month for preparation, with dismantling to be completed in four months.

The Scherzer span was the central lifting section of the 2.05-km Pamban bridge, connecting Mandapam on the mainland with Pamban island near Rameswaram. Designed by American engineer William Donald Scherzer’s Chicago-based company and built by Head Wrightson & Co., U.K., it allowed ships to pass beneath the bridge by lifting the span. Initially constructed to support the tobacco trade between India and Sri Lanka, the bridge facilitated metre-gauge rail traffic from Chennai to Dhanushkodi until the 1964 cyclone destroyed Dhanushkodi’s rail link. The track was later converted to broad gauge in 2007.

Located in one of the world’s most corrosive marine zones, the bridge suffered severe wear despite continuous maintenance. Safety concerns led to the suspension of train services in December 2022, and the bridge was decommissioned soon after. Rail operations resumed in April 2025 via the newly built Pamban bridge.

Officials estimate nearly 1,000 tonnes of corroded steel, joined with rivets, will need to be cut and removed as dismantling rivets is no longer feasible. “As of now, RVNL has been given the task of dismantling only the Scherzer span. Southern Railway may later take up the rest of the bridge structure,” an official said.

Southern Railway had earlier planned to preserve the span as a heritage display near Mandapam. However, due to its fragile condition, the idea was dropped. Instead, a miniature working model of the Scherzer span may be constructed for public exhibition.

The dismantling marks the end of an era for one of India’s most iconic railway structures, which stood for over a century against the rough seas of the Gulf of Mannar.