FIRST HAMILTON BRIDGES

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26120, 24 May 1950, Page 6

FIRST HAMILTON BRIDGES

TWO FOR ERECTION IN MARLBOROUGH The first two Callender-Hamilton : bridges in New Zealand have arrived for erection in Marlborough. They will be used at Pelorus bridge and at Canvastown. Each will have two spans of 80 to 90 feet. The components are supplied as ready-drilled members which can be bolted into the final assembly very rapidly, dismantled, or changed. This type of construction was designed bv Mr A. M. Hamilton, a graduate of the Canterbury University College School of Engineering, who has since become world-famous- for the facility with which his bridges esn be employed. The innovation provided multi-truss, multi-tiered construction by which bridges of almost any size or length can be made equally strong, although the prefabricated members are light and easily handled. Just before the war a 400 ft ramped bridge of this type was put across Western avenue. London, in less than three weeks, with a total road stoppage of only 90 minutes. At the end of the war eight men assembled a 480-ton bridge for the Antwerp-Rotterdam railway in six weeks. Three floating cranes lifted the structure from the bank, and it was installed in two hours. Mr Hamilton’s bridges were used for military and strategic purposes in many parts of the world. Mr Hamilton is at present advising the British Ministry of Transport on the strengthening for permanent heavy use of bridges | erected‘during the war.