Tower Bridge

[JohnP]

Good TV programme last night with Rob Bell. Does anyone know the purpose of the blue painted blocks on the inner face of the towers:

[Andrew]

Had some paint left over from previous re-furb ?.

Last week Rob did London Bridge. New series.

[Andy Bennet]

AFAIK they are tit boxes.

[Andy Burns]

close-up photo ...

They only exist on the inside faces of the central towers, some sort of end-stop for the bascules if they open too far?

[Andy Burns]

You could buy the Haynes manual

[JohnP]

Andy Burns [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I also thought of that - I also consifered that perhaps part of the mechanism - a quadrant arm, may protrude into that when the bridge is lowered.

Fascinating engineering - I enjoyed seeing and understanding the hydraulic accumulator when I visited many years ago.

[Jimmy Stewart ...]

they look a bit like Consol brackets...IE no use

[JohnP]

Andy Burns [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

No aswer- but a good article:

[JohnP]

Andy Burns [e-mail] wrote in news:i6b1ogFc9e2U1 @mid.individual.net:

I am trying to resist buying more books!

[newshound]

They have very deliberate-looking ashlar stone blocks around them that suggests that they carry on inside the outer face of the tower.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Andy Burns explained on 14/01/2021 :

Reassembly is the reverse of.....

[NY]

Does anyone know when the third episode, Westminster Bridge, will be shown?

I was hoping the Tower Bridge episode would show I sight I've always wanted to see: the bascule weight lowering into the bascule chamber as the bridge is raised. It would need a small remote camera since I imagine there isn't a lot of room in there when the bascules are raised.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Is that the one running like a carousel on one of them there internet channels? Obviously I could not see it but the description was very good for a sighted person.

Brian

[Bob Eager]

You can get some idea if you go on the tour. At the end of a talk, towards the end of the tour, a klaxon gowes off and a dummy bascule weight starts descending into the chanber you are in.

[jon]

My Chinese friend wouldn't stand on the glass floor..

[Chris J Dixon]

That has been shown before. I think it was Adam Hart Davis, and he stood in the doorway and watched it descend. Probably in the "How London was built" series.

Dan Cruickshank visited the chamber in this:

at about 48:30, but no movement.

Chris

[JohnP]

Bob Eager [e-mail] wrote in news:i6c6dfFif61U7 @mid.individual.net:

How can a dummy weight fit in as well as the real one?

[NY]

Ah, that must be a new innovation since I went to Tower Bridge many years ago - probably no later than 2005 (and maybe quite a bit earlier). I'm not sure I remember a guided tour: I think it was "free for all go anywhere" as soon as you got your ticket.

I don't remember the glass floor in the walkway that links the towers, so that's another innovation since I went.

Interesting that the walkways were rarely used, right from when the bridge opened, because people preferred to stay at ground level and watch the bascules lifting and the ship passing through. I imagine the time it took to walk up all the steps and down the ones on the other side was a factor: it might have been different if there had been lifts ;-)

I hadn't realised (or maybe I'd forgotten) that there are two parallel walkways rather than one which is the full width of the roadway below.

It was interesting to see the other designs that were submitted for the bridge: the very high conventional bridge which would have needed very long ramps at each end, and the bridge with turrets but an archway in between. Similarly for the rejected designs for the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, including one with piers that went right down to the river bed.

[Andy Burns]

I thought they were used for the oldest trade?

[NY]

Yes, Rob Bell's programme mentioned that they were notorious for pick-pocketing but (deliberately?) avoided mentioning what was uppermost in my mind, that they were used for the oldest trade. I suppose if they had the glass floors at that time, there would have been some added eroticism in banging the pro as you looked down at the bascules of the bridge opening and a ship passing below ;-)