Liao River Railway Bridge (China)
Note: The place names below are likely to be updated.
Constructed by the Imperial Railways of North China in 1907-8 for the extension from Hsin-min-fu (新民府 Ximinfu ?) to Mukden (Shenyang).
Twenty 100 ft girder spans. The two centre spans were half deck, the others being deck spans (trackway on top).
The air lock for sinking the piers was constructed in the railway's workshops, to the design of Claude William Kinder.
The construction schedule was seasonally dependent, the river extent and depth varying considerably, but special measures were required to accommodate temperature variations.
All the concrete was mixed by hand. The cement and sand were first mixed dry, and then stones were mixed in. During the coldest two months, temperatures remained below zero F, so the water for the concrete was warmed in heated pans, and salt was added. The sand was also warmed on heated plates. Pier sinking was sometimes affected by frozen ground. Blizzards, and later ice-jams, also caused problems.
The two central spans were constructed in London, to the design of Baker and Hurtzig, and shipped in sections, but the others were made locally using imported material.
The whole of the work was carried out by Chinese staff, the only non-Chinese member of the team on site being William Orr Leitch, the resident engineer.
The bridge was tested on 32 October 1908, 13 1/2 months after field work commenced.
The above information is condensed from Engineering, 21 January 1910.