The El Ferdan Railway Bridge is a

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that can be rotated horizontally around a vertical axis. It has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravit ...

that spans the western shipping lane of the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

near

Ismailia Ismailia ( ', ) is a city in north-eastern Egypt. Situated on the west bank of the Suez Canal, it is the capital of the Ismailia Governorate. The city had an estimated population of about 1,434,741 according to the statistics issued by the Cen ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. It is the longest swing bridge in the world, with a span of . The bridge was not functional for a while due to the expansion of the Suez Canal completed in 2015 which added a parallel shipping lane just east of the existing bridge, cutting off the railway into Sinai. As of 2021 a second swing bridge spanning the new eastern shipping lane was under construction and started operating in 2024.

History

The first El Ferdan Railway Bridge over the Suez Canal was completed in April 1918 for the Sinai Military Railway.Hughes, 1981, page 17 It was considered a hindrance to shipping so after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

it was removed. A steel swing bridge was built in 1942 (during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

), but this was damaged by a steamship and removed in 1947. A double swing bridge was completed in 1954 but the 1956 Anglo-Franco-Israeli war with Egypt severed rail traffic across the canal for a third time. A replacement bridge was completed in 1963 which was destroyed in 1967 in the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

by the Egyptian engineering General Ahmed Hamdy. In July 1996, a consortium led by German

Krupp Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...

was awarded a $US70 million contract to design and build the bridge, raised to $80 million to increase the main span from . The current bridge was constructed in 2001.

Significant developments in the region

The El Ferdan Railway Bridge was part of a major drive to develop the areas surrounding the

, including other projects such as the Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel under the Suez Canal (completed in 1983), the Suez Canal overhead powerline crossing, and the Suez Canal Bridge (completed in 2001, roughly 12 miles north of the El Ferdan Railway Bridge).

The bridge today: plans for upgrading tracks and building a new bridge

The parallel New Suez Canal was excavated in 2014/2015 a short distance to the east but without a bridge spanning it. Without a second bridge, the railway across El Ferdan bridge is a dead end. Initially, a plan was in place to construct a new railway tunnel in the Ismailia region (and another near Port Said is planned) in order to reconnect the Sinai to the rest of Egypt's rail network. However, Kamel ElWazir, who was at that time the head of the

Egyptian Armed Forces The Egyptian Armed Forces () are the military forces of the Egypt, Arab Republic of Egypt. The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces directs (a) Egyptian Army forces, (b) the Egyptian Navy, (c) Egyptian Air Force and (d) Egyptian Air Defense Forces. ...

- Engineering corps, announced that due to high costs the plans for a new tunnel would be scrapped and that the Engineering Corps would seek other alternatives including moving the existing bridge to a narrow section of the canal at El-Qantara. However, the final decision was made in 2017 to keep the existing bridge at its current location and build a new

double-track railway A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lin ...

bridge (based on the current El Ferdan bridge design) across the new, eastern shipping lane several hundred meters to the east. The existing bridge over the western shipping lane would be converted from a

single-track railway A single-track railway is a railway where trains traveling in both directions share the same track. Single track is usually found on lesser-used rail lines, often branch lines, where the level of traffic is not high enough to justify the c ...

to a

. This was near completion in October 2023.

References

External links

* {{Suez Canal Railway bridges in Egypt Suez Canal Bridges completed in 2001 Swing bridges 21st-century architecture in Egypt