OT The Forth Bridge

[Tim Watts]

But a lot more in terms of dynamic loading.

[Tim Watts]

No - definitely ali mesh and some structural Isopon - kept my Maxi passing MOTs even after most of the door bottoms and sills had disappeared.

[Tim Watts]

Steel ropes used for offshore work were packed with grease during assembly - I wonder if these were originally?

[Ian Jackson]

As the cable are in tubes, I would have expected them to have heavy-duty grease nipples at regular intervals - or at least a few holes where you could squirt the occasional drop of WD40.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Bill Wright escribió:

[Chris J Dixon]

Chris

[Martin]

They are the reason a new bridge is being built.

Yes.

[Tim+]

Yes, but you said that the bridge was closed because of snapping cable strands. Whilst indirectly that may be related, that is not the reason the bridge was closed.

Tim

[Martin]

Sysco and not Serco?

[Martin]

They could sell it to the USA to bridge the Grand Canyon.

[Mark Carver]

As long as it's not held together with metric nuts and bolts ?

[nemo]

So are cables supporting TV masts, and the grease has to be reapplied at intervals.

[Martin]

It was built prior to UK metrification.

[spuorgelgoog]

As they haven't mastered prefabricating bridges *of that size* and craning them into place overnight, the time it takes to dismantle the old bridge an d erect the new one is too long. They need to have the new one ready before the close the old one ... in theory.

It's a bit like schools. Even though a new school can easily be built over the summer holidays using modular buildings, councils would rather build a new school on green belt (it's for the kiddies...) and then they can sell o ff the old school site for housing.

Smaller bridges are prefabbed and dropped into place overnight.

Owain

[Andrew Gabriel]

It looks like it will last almost exactly half its original design life of 120 years, assuming they manage to get this problem repaired, and less if they decide to give up on it a few years early.

[Martin]

The new bridge is supposed to be ready next year.

[Graham Murray]

Where are the Royal Engineers when you need them? If it been a war and a bridge was blown up by the enemy to stop the tanks and troops crossing, the Royal Engineers could have constructed a Bailey (or other type of) Bridge in a couple of days

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I suppose it could be it's simply had to carry far more traffic than ever envisaged.

Thinking on it, the older suspension bridges over the Thames in London both have restrictions. And have had major re-builds.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think I heard the end of next year. Not sure they could cope with the traffic chaos until then.

[tim.....]

but elf and safety would forbid anybody from actually using it

tim