The bridge stretches 91 meters across a valley along the Colombo-Badulla railway line, navigating a challenging nine-degree curve and steep gradient. Its nine graceful arches are built from concrete cornice blocks for structural support and locally produced sand-cement blocks for the facing. The construction was carried out entirely by local labor under British supervision, an achievement made more remarkable by the terrain. Materials had to be transported to a remote site accessible only by rough trails through dense highland jungle. Engineer Harold Cuthbert Marwood oversaw the project, later presenting a report to the Institution of Engineers, Ceylon, in 1922, documenting the methods used to complete a major piece of railway infrastructure without the material everyone assumed was essential.

Local folklore credits a Ceylonese builder named P. K. Appuhami with the bridge's construction, working in consultation with British engineers. The story goes that Appuhami, born in 1870 in the Kappatipola area near Melimada, was a traditional drummer and devil dancer who turned his hand to engineering. When unstable soil threatened the foundations, Appuhami is said to have solved the problem by toppling giant boulders into the gap until the bedrock was solid enough to support the bridge's columns. There is no documented evidence confirming Appuhami's involvement, but the folklore has become inseparable from the bridge itself. Whether or not one man deserves the credit, the story captures something true: this was a bridge built by local hands, from local materials, through local problem-solving.

The bridge's other name, the Bridge in the Sky, makes sense the moment you see it. The nine arches frame patches of green jungle and open sky, and when a train crosses, its blue carriages seem to float above the canopy. The viaduct sits on the railway line between Ella and Demodara stations, a stretch of track that winds through some of Sri Lanka's most dramatic highland scenery: tea plantations stepping down steep hillsides, waterfalls threading through forest, and valleys that open suddenly below the train. The Demodara loop, just beyond the bridge, is another engineering curiosity where the track spirals through a tunnel and crosses over itself to manage the extreme gradient. Together, the bridge and the loop form a sequence of railway engineering that treats impossible terrain as a puzzle rather than an obstacle.

More than a century after its completion, the Nine Arch Bridge carries trains daily. It has also become one of Sri Lanka's most photographed landmarks, drawing visitors who hike down to the valley floor to see the arches from below or who stand on the tracks to watch trains rumble across. The Sri Lankan government has declared it an archaeological protected monument. In 2023, it was formally gazetted for preservation. The bridge stands as proof of a simple, stubborn principle: when the expected materials run out, the work does not have to stop. Stone, cement, local knowledge, and sheer determination built something that steel was supposed to make possible, and the result has outlasted the war that caused the problem in the first place.