> My father designed a "distribution beam girder," a rigid structure made of steel plates, to distribute the load on to the new pier. He got it made from a ship

> My father designed a "distribution beam girder," a rigid structure made of steel plates, to distribute the load on to the new pier. He got it made from a shipbuilding yard in Calcutta. They produced it overnight, and the army transported it and assembled it on site. Overnight production for this huge custom design sounds pretty intense to say the least. Wow. My condolences by the way. I was doing some digging in my own family lines in recent years, since I had previously mainly been taught to focus on and respect those ancestors who had been part of the religion into which I was born. When I decided not to practice it anymore, it was like I had to rediscover my own heritage. I was pretty happy to find a bridge-engineer in the family who didn't fit the same mold. It's fascinating to me that not too long ago, you could build a 600-foot rail bridge responsible for so many millions of tons of freight, without even getting a university degree beforehand.