The Sutlej at Phillaur was first bridged for rail in 1870, the final link in the line that tied Delhi to Lahore.
The Alexandra Bridge over the Chenab at Wazirabad opened in 1876. The Empress Bridge over the Sutlej at Adamwahan opened in 1878 and was for a time the longest bridge in India. The Attock bridge over the Indus, a double-decker carrying rail and road, opened in 1883.
Before them, rivers were crossed by ferry or by bridges of boats, which is why the Khalsa army's retreat at Sobraon in 1846 across a bridge of boats ended as it did.
The bridges were built for military and revenue reasons and they made the canal colony economy possible, because grain had to reach a port.
Several of these nineteenth-century structures still carry traffic. They are among the most significant surviving engineering works in the region and none is interpreted anywhere.
The bridge over the Sutlej at Hussainiwala was blown in 1971 and rebuilt.
The river bridges built in the nineteenth century for the railway were among the largest engineering works in India, at Attock, at the Beas, at Phillaur on the Sutlej and at the Chenab.
Several still carry traffic. The Attock bridge, double decked for road and rail, has been in use since the 1880s in successive forms.
Before them the crossings were by ferry and by bridges of boats, which were removed each flood season. The bridges are what made the province a single administrative unit in practice.