The contract for the building of the North-South railway was signed in 1933 with a Danish company called Kampsax. It is worth mentioning that several European companies had previously failed to construct railways in the middle of the Alborz Mountains. The main problem was how the train crossed the steep slope leading to the Gaduk tunnel and the deep valley between the two mountains. The CEO of Kampsax pledged to build 900 kilometers of railway line in 6 years. They received one and a half grams of pure gold as a wage per meter.
In the construction of this bridge, simple equipment such as manual drills were used. More interestingly, no metal structures were used in the Veresk bridge.
However, the function of the Veresk bridge is more than just travel and soon gained worldwide fame. During World War II, the Allies, such as Britain and France, want to assist their Soviet ally against Nazi Germany by delivering military weapons from Iranian territory to the Bandar-e Turkmen and Russian ships in the Caspian Sea. Crossing the Iran territory was only possible by rail. The importance of this bridge led this bridge to become a symbol of Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
Reza Shah’s government decided to land mine all the bridges along the North-South railway. Although this decision was confidential, it was never carried out, and the mines were discovered and defused by the Allied occupation of Iran. It is estimated that about 75 trains loaded with military pass through Veresk daily.
Stone Museum, Qazvin Province, North West Iran
