On this day in 1905, construction of the Victoria Falls Bridge is completed. It spans across the Zambezi River just below the Victoria Falls and is built over the Second Gorge of the falls.
The bridge was the brainchild of Cecil John Rhodes as part of his grand and unfulfilled Cape-to-Cairo railway scheme, even though he never visited the falls and died before construction of the bridge began. Rhodes is recorded as instructing the engineers to “build the bridge across the Zambezi where the trains, as they pass, will catch the spray of the Falls”.
It was designed by George Andrew Hobson of the consultants Sir Douglas Fox and Partners, assisted by the stress calculations of Ralph Freeman, who was later the principal designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The bridge was prefabricated in England by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company, before being shipped to the Mozambique port of Beira and then transported on the newly constructed railway to the Victoria Falls. It took just 14 months to construct and was completed on 11 April 1905.
The bridge was officially opened by Professor George Darwin, son of Charles Darwin and President of the British Association (now the British Science Association) on 12 September 1905. The American Society of Civil Engineers lists the bridge as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
Constructed from steel, the bridge is 198m long, with a main arch spanning 156,50m at a height of 128m above the lower water mark of the river in the gorge below. It carries a road, railway and footway. The bridge is the only rail link between Zambia and Zimbabwe and one of only three road links between the two countries.
Information courtesy of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls_Bridge.
