Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and who remain in business to this day. Work began on 3
rd
December 1929. A riveted steel
truss structure, using 1,100 tons of structural steel, the bridge has three spans. The two
outer spans, each of 74.9 metres (246 ft), are fixed. The centre span, measuring 61.8 metres
(202 ft 11 ins) and 7.3 metres (24 ft) above the water at its highest point, is a bascule span,
composed of two separate parts, each of which could originally be tilted upwards to allow
tall vessels or ceremonial river processions to pass underneath. The bascule arms turned
on fixed trunnions and were balanced by 450-ton cast-iron weights hanging inside con-
crete piers on both sides of the river. An electric motor operating the gearing could raise
the two bascule leaves in less than five minutes, and a petrol engine was on standby in
case the power supply failed. The operator sat in a cabin on the east pier, with an elec-
trical cable on the riverbed connecting the gearing in each pier. Another cabin was loc-
ated on the opposite bank for the sake of design symmetry, but the only mechanism con-
trolled from there was the safety locking gear. Sadly, this ingenious mechanism, designed
by a British engineer named Frederick Thompson and manufactured by Thomas Broad-
bent and Sons of Huddersfield, is no longer in use. When the Pokklao Bridge was being
built in 1983, ending the possibility of tall ships sailing any further upriver, the two bas-
cule sections were permanently connected and hold-down tendons and bearings installed
to dampen any movement. As the entire lifting gear is contained inside the piers and is
not visible from the shore or the river, the curious-minded, strolling along the pedestrian
walkway to try and see how the mechanism worked, will find little to enlighten him.
At the foot of the bridge is Wong Wian Lek, the smaller of the two Thonburi traffic
circles. Or at least, this is where it used to be. With the opening of the Pokklao Bridge and
its access roads, the circle was cut in two and its landmark clock tower moved east towards
Somdet Chao Phraya Road, where there is still the Wong Wian Lek Market. From here
operated a bus service over the bridge to business areas such as Chinatown and the Indian
district of Pahurat. The terraced houses alongside the road connecting to the bridge were
of two storeys, with a tin roof, and many of them survive today. In the vicinity of the circle
there were shops and parking areas for horse-drawn carriages and cycle rickshaws waiting
to take people over to the Bangkok side. The food shops along the footpath meant that the
area was a busy and colourful one, especially at night. In the years between the opening
of the bridge and the start of World War
II
., bands played here on Saturday and Sunday
evenings and the circle, with its buses bringing in passengers and moving them out, must
have been very pleasant, especially compared to the impersonal roar of today's traffic over
the bridge. Wong Wian Lek Market, however, still retains its garden atmosphere and is a
noted place to buy Buddha amulets, while on the other side of the bridge approach road
