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Pamban is a town in the Rameswaram taluk of Ramanathapuram district, Tamil Nadu. It is at the west edge of Pamban Island and is a popular fishing port. The town gives its name to the whole island. Pamban railway station is the first station on the island for pilgrims travelling to Rameswaram.

Pamban Bridge is a railway bridge which connects the town of Mandapam in mainland India with Pamban Island, and Rameswaram. Opened on 24 February 1914, it was India's first sea bridge, and was the longest sea bridge in India until the opening of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link in 2010. The rail bridge is, for the most part, a conventional bridge resting on concrete piers, but has a double-leaf bascule section midway, which can be raised to let ships and barges pass through. Until 1988, the Pamban bridge was the only surface transport that connected Tamil Nadu's island of Rameswaram to the mainland. In Dec-2018, the bascule of this bridge was damaged, which suspended the transportation on the bridge for 3 months. Rail movement was again restored on 27th Feb 2019.

The railway bridge carried metre gauge trains connecting Mandapam on mainland India to Pamban. Indian Railways upgraded the bridge to carry broad gauge trains and the work was completed on 12 August 2007. From Pamban, the railway line bifurcated, one line towards Rameshwaram about 6.25 miles (10.06 km) up and another branch line of 15 miles (24 km) terminating at Dhanushkodi. The Boat mail express runs from Chennai Egmore to Rameswaram. The train ran up to Dhanushkodi until 1964 when the metre-gauge branch line from Pamban to Dhanushkodi was destroyed during the 1964 Dhanushkodi cyclone.

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