Howrah Bridge — the famous landmark of Kolkata
Howrah Bridge, also popularly known as RabindraSetu, is considered to be a marvelous engineering work by the British Engineers. It is just a short brief of this remarkable attraction of Kolkata
Howrah Bridge connects Kolkata and Howrah and acts as lifeline of Kolkata city. It spans over the river Hooghly It is considered as the busiest cantilever bridge in the world. It also connects the Kolkata city to its main railway station, Howrah Station, which is also one of the busiest railway stations in the world.History of construction of Howrah bridge
Construction of New Howrah Bridge was started in the year 1937. The Cantilever Era was prevailing at time and engineers felt that cantilever bridges are more rigid than suspension bridges and thus the idea to build the Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly River was born. The bridge was opened to all on Feb1943. On 14th June 1965 it was renamed to Rabindra Setu (named after the great Poet Kabiguru RabindraNath Tagore). Basic Features of Howrah Bridge
The howrah bridge is technically a "cantilever truss" bridge, constructed exclusively by riveting, without nuts and bolts. It is 705 metres long and 97 feet wide. The structure of the bridge was built from 26,500 tons of high tensile steel, supported by 2 piers. Each pier is about 90metres above the road.
The bridge carriers a steady flow of more than thousands vehicles and pedestrians everyday.
At night it looks stunning with lights on.Howrah Bridge In Indian Cinema
Howrah Bridge has been a kind of motivation for the Indian Cinema. We have seen that it has been featured in various films. Noted ones are as follows:
• Howrah Bridge was a title of a Bolloywood Film in the year 1958 casting Madhubala and AshokKumar.
• It featured in Mrinal Sen"s Bengali Movie Neel Akasher Neeche in the year 1959
• It featured in Shakti Samanta's Film Amar Prem in the year 1971.
• It featured in Nicolas Klotz's English Language Film The Bengali Night in the year 1988
• It featured in Mani Ratnam's movie Yuva in the year 2004
• It featured in pradeep Sarkar's Bollywood Movie Parineeta in the year 2005
• It featured in Mira Nair's The Namesake in the year 2006 and many more.
