The Zhejiang Road Bridge is the second oldest along the Suzhou Creek. (Photo : Wikimedia)
A month ahead of schedule, the 107-year-old Zhejiang Road Bridge has been restored to its original look and could reopen traffic by late December as soon as finishing touches are made.
The historic bridge was lifted back into position on Sunday, Oct. 18, over the Suzhou Creek through a 10-hour operation.
Four and a half months ago, the bridge was removed from its foundations to undergo restoration. The 420-ton bridge was moved out of a 100-meter-away workshop from the creek to the riverbank on Saturday.
According to Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute's Qian Cheng, the project's manager, "many parts of the bridge proved to be in a worse condition than previously thought."
"So, we put in more engineers and equipment to ensure that the bridge would be working again by the end of the year," he added.
"Basically we gave birth to the bridge again using contemporary technologies," said Shang Guoping, the vice director of the city road administration's construction division.
Shang revealed that the engineers retained the structure's rivets, although the use of it in steel construction has long been replaced by high-strength bolts and welding.
"While back then they had to use furnaces and hammers in riveting, we used electricity to heat up the rivets and electric appliances to drive them into the structure to make the process more reliable," he added.
The engineers also corrected a few details of the bridge based from old pictures, citing that the maintenance done on the infrastructure has erased or altered some of its original, distinctive features.
The newly restored Zhejiang Road Bridge, weighing 200 tons lighter, is expected to have a working life of another 50 years. It is the second oldest bridge across the creek after the Waibaidu Bridge, which is now 108 years old.
