The Firth Of Forth Rail Bridge
...ccount. Although the bridge was first formally opened on March 4, 1890, it was actually first used on January 21st of that year, when two 1000ft long test trains each comprising of a locomotive and 50 wagons, and each weighing 900 tons, rolled onto the bridge side by side from the south. The bridge is seen as an engineering marvel even today- when it was first constructed it was considered the eighth wonder of the world, being 1.5 miles long and 150 feet above sea level. It consists of two main spans of 1,700 feet, two side spans of 675 feet, 15 approach spans of 168 feet and five of 25. The cantilever arms are 680 feet long, and the three towers are 330 feet long. It took 54 thousand tons of steel, 194 thousand cubic yards of granite, stone, and concrete, and 21 thousand tons of cement to construct the bridge. The ends of the bridge contain one thousand ton counter weights can support about half of the load. The two main spans weigh 11571 tons each. There were 6 million 5 hundred thousand rivets used, totaling at 4200 tons of rivets. It cost 3.2 million English pounds to construct the bridge, the equivalent of approximately 235 million English pounds today. Today the bridge still ranks as the second longest cantilever bridge in the world, only beaten by the Quebec Bridge, which is 38 feet longer, built in 1918. Four thousand men worked on the bridge over the course of the seven years of construction. Rescue boats positioned under the bridge during construction saved at least 8 lives, but 57 men still lost their lives to the bridge. Supposedly the bridge’s forty-five acre surface was painted without stop for one hundred years, as when one coat was finished it needed a new one. Now, though, a new paint regime should last for at least twenty years. When the Prince of Whales opened the bridge, he drove in the last rivet, golden and suitably inscribed. There is a legend associated with this rivet- apparently it had to be removed when foolish treasure hunters started losing their lives in search of this golden rivet. The way a cantilever bridge i...