El Ferdan Bridge
Coordinates: 30 ° 39 ′ 26 ″ N , 32 ° 20 ′ 1 ″ E
| El Ferdan Bridge | ||
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| Official name | El Ferdan Bridge | |
| use | Railway bridge, road bridge | |
| Convicted | Sinai Railway | |
| Crossing of | Suez Canal | |
| place | approx. 12 km north of Ismailia , Egypt | |
| Entertained by | Egyptian State Railways | |
| construction | Steel, swing bridge | |
| overall length | 640 m | |
| width | 12.6 m | |
| Number of openings | 3 | |
| Pillar spacing | 340 m | |
| height | 60 m | |
| Headroom | 15th | |
| completion | 2001 | |
| opening | November 14, 2001 | |
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The El Ferdan Bridge (also: al-Firdan Bridge, Arabic كوبري الفردان Kūbrī al-Firdān ) across the Suez Canal in Egypt is the longest swing bridge in the world. It is named after the El Ferdan plain.
Geographical location
The about 12 km north of Ismailia located bridge connects a single track , the Sinai railway east of the Suez Canal with the rest of Egyptian railway network and also offers a two-lane road link across the Channel.
history
The first bridge over the Suez Canal was opened in the First World War , but was later dismantled again as a disruption to shipping traffic. A ferry connected by rail, a ferry on the road, the two banks of the canal. At the site of the current bridge, a bridge, the first swing bridge, was built again during the Second World War in 1942 for strategic military reasons. This temporary military facility was replaced by a new building in 1963, which was destroyed in the Six Day War in 1967 . Replacement was only created on November 14, 2001, when the current bridge was opened by the then President, Husni Mubarak . The bridge is operated by the Egyptian State Railways.
Technical parameters
The Suez Canal is 320 m wide and 27 m deep at this point. Because of this depth, tunneling under the canal would have been too costly.
The bridge consists of two horizontally rotating segments, each 320 m long and 12.6 m wide. The bridge has a total weight of 13,200 tons, of which 10,500 tons are steel . The structure consists of 60 meter high pylons that stand over the pivot points and from which the cantilever arms are suspended. The roadway is 15 m above the water level of the canal. The cantilever arms are 170 meters long on the canal side and 150 meters on the landside. The shorter cantilever arm is provided with a counterweight.
business
The swiveling process by 90 degrees takes about 15 minutes. Land-based traffic is released for around three to four hours. After the bridge has been opened for shipping, the ships that have since been pent-up pass the bridge in a convoy.
Current condition
After the new Suez Canal was opened a little east of the bridge in 2014/2015 and there is no bridge there, the railway over the El Ferdan Bridge has been shut down, the bridge is permanently open to shipping. Two new rail tunnels are planned under the Suez Canal to connect the Sinai Peninsula to the Egyptian rail network, one in the Ismailia region and one near Port Said.
literature
- Tomas Meyer-Eppler: swing bridge with 340 m span . In: Lok Magazin 4/2002, p. 30.
Web links
- Construction company website with illustrations of the bridge
- Website of the construction company with photo (No. 5) of the closed bridge
- El Ferdan Bridge. In: Structurae
- Technical technical article, in English ( Memento from August 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive )