NEW BRIDGE BRINGS MEMORIES

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30540, 8 September 1964, Page 20

NEW BRIDGE BRINGS MEMORIES

(Specially written tor “The Press” by M. E. CASKEY) yESTERDA Y the Queen opened the long-awaited road bridge across the Firth of Forth. No doubt hundreds of holiday-makers and businessmen are already using it to shorten their journeys by many miles. Were there many among the cheering Scottish crowds who re-, membered the opening in 1890 of the Forth railway bridge now towering alongside like some gigantic Meccano model? If Queen Elizabeth cuts the orthodox ribbon at the opening ceremony she will be more fortunate than her great grandfather Edward VII., who, as Prince of Wales opened the Railway bridge in 1890. In biting, cold squalls, but with due ceremony, he drove the last of the eight million odd rivets used in the bridge. The others had been driven by less fortunate men, climbing like ants above the icy water in all weathers. Edward VII having driven his one rivet, the Royal party boarded the Royal train to cross the bridge. With the Marchioness of Tweedale as

driver, (under suitable direction) the train steamed slowly across. However, not satisfied with that, the party then boarded the little steamboat Dolphin to view the bridge from below. It was well and truly inspected and the £3,500,000 seemed to be money well spent. Today passengers can board launches at Queensbury for the same view. Dizzying figures are quoted on length of spans, total length, height above high water and while one half listens to this mass of statistics one is thinking of those ant-like men who for years crawled in bitter weather above that icy water. For 74 years this solid old giant has straddled the Forth, in grim contrast to the Tay Bridge opened earlier in that century. It was triumphantly opened in 1878 and ignominiously fell into the river in December, 1879. Three weeks after the opening, Queen Victoria ordered her Royal Train to be re-routed when she was on her way home from Balmoral to Windsor. She wished to see and cross the Tay bridge. So at Tay Bridge station the queen received among others, Thomas Bouch, the designer and builder. He knew that the next day at Windsor he was to receive a knighthood. Already he was making plans for an even greater bridge across the Forth. Slowly that Royal train proceeded on the single track while crowds on the shore

cheered wildly. Little did they realise, as Queen Victoria passed by, that the day might so easily have ended in tragedy. None but the firm of builders and the maintenance men knew of breakages and makeshift repairs, of flaws and cracks filled with a sinister sounding composition beau montegg which took paint like iron. No-one else knew of wet cement concrete which burst the iron columns and only Bouch himself knew that he had made no calculations whatever in respect of lateral wind pressure. And what winds do rush up those Scottish firths?

It seems significant in the light of later events that the Board of Trade inspectors recommended a speed limit of 25 m.p.h. and also wished to know the effect of wind on the bridge. Sadly enough their wish was very soon gratified. Shortly after 7 p.m. on December 28, 1879, the bridge collapsed, in a wild westerly gale of hurricane force, hurling a train with about 70 passengers into the seething waters below. No-one survived, but a sailor on H.M.S. Mars had watched the lights of the train as it crawled slowly across in the tearing gale. A sudden wild gust caused him to turn and grasp the rail. When next he looked upstream, no train lights were

in sight—just a huge gap in the outline of the almost new bridge. The only light to be seen was the yellow flickering lantern of the railwayman waiting for a train which never arrived. The inquiry found that the bridge had been badly designed and even more badly built and badly maintained. Sir Thomas Bouch, a broken man after such a denouement died soon afterwards. In spite of such a calamity the Tay bridge had shown itself to be almost indispensable so plans were quickly made to build the present bridge. It is solid if dull in design. This new £20,000,000 Forth bridge 1} miles long and fourth longest in the world, has been designed and built by highly skilled engineers, with modern machinery and with newer materials. We trust it will stand for long years. Doubtless the Government would heartily endorse this sentiment for only if the toll for each vehicle, now 2s 6d, were increased to 13s 4d would the bridge ever pay for itself. Indeed, even if five million vehicles a year crossed the bridge it is still unlikely that it would ever become a paying proposition. But economics are not the first consideration in this day of fast cars and rapid transport.