Victoria Falls Bridge was the brainchild of British administrator and financier Cecil Rhodes, who envisioned a railway scheme the length of the African continent, from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. The former governor of Rhodesia (today Zambia and Zimbabwe) reputedly instructed the bridge’s engineers to “build the bridge across the Zambezi where the trains as they pass will catch the spray from the Falls”. Sadly, he never even got to visit the Falls and died before construction of the bridge began.
Set in a remote section of the African rainforest, the Victoria Falls span nearly a mile (1,708m) across the Zambezi River, which forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, before dropping over 100 metres into a deep gorge.
The bridge, built just downstream from the falls and supported by a parabolic arch spanning 156.5m, was fashioned from materials shipped on the rail line and transported across the gorge by cableway. The design of what was...