Getting a train onto a ferry is a big deal, even today. Apart from the fact that trains are just plain heavy, they require the building of trestle bridges for the embarking/disembarking of locomotives and carriages. All very well, but in Nanjing, there was a problem.
In October, 1930, the Ministry of Railways of the National Government established the “Xiaguan-Pukou Railway Ferry Special Design Committee”. It looked at the water levels of the Yangtze River in Nanjing during years prior and found a 14.872-metre fluctuation. That’s one heck of a tide.
The back story to this is that the Jinpu (Tianjin-Pukou) Railway came to its southern terminus on the northern bank of the Yangtze in Nanjing. And it really needed to be connected with then up-and-coming Shanghai. The solution was simple; put the train on a boat. This, however, was easier said than done.
For the construction would need to be able to extend out over the river to reach the boat when waters were at their lowest, and rise up to serve the boat when at their highest.
After comparing various design plans, the Committee decided to adopt the “movable approach bridge” plan proposed by Zheng Hua, who was then head of the design section of the Ministry of Railways.
China may be trumps in the world of bridges today, but back then it was the British. Hence, the north and south bank trestle bridges for the Nanjing Railway Ferry were designed and constructed by Dorman Long which concurrently worked on Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Said firm decreed that the maximum incline of the bridge be 2.6 degrees, necessitating the length of the approaches.
Construction began on 1 December, 1930, and was completed in September of 1933. The Nanjing Railway Ferry was officially opened to trains the following month.
Regarded as the throat of cross river links at the time, Chairman Mao Zedong himself inspected the Ferry on the evening of 15 December, 1962.
As the first railway ferry in China and indeed, all of Asia, the Ferry was selected as one of China’s “Top Ten Projects” during that glorious period known as “The Nanjing Decade”, from 1927 to 1937. Today, it sits all alone, protected, but rightfully left to rust.
