El Ferdan Railway Bridge

El Ferdan Railway Bridge is a railway swing bridge across Egypt’s Suez Canal near Ismailia. It carries a rail line between the Sinai Peninsula and the rest of Egypt.

Connect

Swing bridge: A movable bridge that rotates horizontally around a vertical pivot to let vessels pass. El Ferdan’s movable span turns aside from the canal’s navigation channel.
Ferdan Bridge (1900): An early railway bridge across the Suez Canal, opened in 1900 near El Ferdan. It was the first bridge at the crossing later served by the modern swing bridge.
Sinai Peninsula: A triangular peninsula in Egypt between the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba. The bridge’s railway connection reaches this peninsula from Egypt’s main rail network.
Suez Canal Road Tunnel: A road tunnel beneath the Suez Canal near Ismailia, opened in 2019. It carries road traffic beneath the canal rather than swinging aside for ships.
Suez Canal: An artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The bridge crosses this major shipping route, whose traffic governs when its span can close.
Ferdan Bridge (1954): A railway swing bridge completed at El Ferdan in 1954 and destroyed during the 1967 war. Its construction and destruction preceded the bridge that stands at the site today.
Ismailia: An Egyptian city on the western bank of the Suez Canal, near Lake Timsah. The bridge lies near Ismailia, a key nearby city on the canal.
Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel: A road tunnel beneath the Suez Canal near Suez, connecting mainland Egypt with Sinai. It provides a fixed road crossing farther south, unlike El Ferdan’s movable rail link.
Railway bridge: A bridge designed to carry railway tracks and the trains that use them. El Ferdan is a movable railway crossing, combining track-bearing structure with canal clearance.
Six-Day War: The 1967 Arab–Israeli war fought by Israel against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The conflict left the earlier El Ferdan bridge unusable and severed the rail link.