The Baddest Bridge Near You

[Alex_Krycek]

Just finished a great documentary on the Millau Viaduct in France, and it inspired me to create this thread about the biggest, baddest bridge near you.  Know idea why, but bridges have always fascinated me.  Even when I was a kid, I would stare out of the car window as we crossed rivers and gorges, awestruck at this road in the sky and how it was created. 

Here in South Carolina, the baddest bridge is the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge about 75 miles away from me in Charleston.  The cable-stayed bridge has a main span of 1,546 feet (471 m), (total length is 13,200 feet) and is the third longest among cable-stayed bridges in the Western Hemisphere.

More bad a** bridges here:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2018/jan/19/longest-bridges-around-the-world-in-pictures

So what is the baddest bridge near you?

Edited January 19, 2018 by Alex_Krycek

[zapatos]

The favorite bridge near me is th Eads Bridge, financed by Andrew Carnegie. It opened in 1874 and is still in use today. It was the first all steel bridge, the first to exclusively use cantilever supports, and still has some of the deepest caissons ever sunk. Fifteen people died from "the bends" during its construction. 

To prove that the structure was safe they walked an elephant across it, because as everyone knew at the time, an elephant would not walk onto an unsafe structure. Science at its best!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eads_Bridge

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by zapatos

[StringJunky]

Humber Bridge UK - Centre span 4626ft and 7283ft total. It's the 8th longest between towers. I remember as an 18 year old crop inspecting a field which was situated some miles away, located in the middle between the two towers and you could see the the tops of the towers leaning outwards which was due to the curvature of the Earth. 

Edited January 19, 2018 by StringJunky

[Phi for All]

Not really near me, but the bridge out to Coronado Island from San Diego is my favorite bridge to cross. 11,179 feet long, with an 80 degree curve.

[rangerx]

The new Nipigon River bridge replaced an otherwise safe and functional bridge built one hundred years ago, but failed during the first cold snap.

Other than a rail bridge adjacent to it, the closure essentially severed Canada into two regions, being the only highway through the area. The only alternate route south of the Great Lakes, in the USA.

[Alex_Krycek]

14 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Humber Bridge UK - Centre span 4626ft and 7283ft total. It's the 8th longest between towers. I remember as an 18 year old crop inspecting a field which was situated some miles away, located in the middle between the two towers and you could see the the tops of the towers leaning outwards which was due to the curvature of the Earth. 

 

Wow.  Quite a structure.  According to wikipedia this was the longest suspension bridge in the world for over ten years from 1981 - 1998.  Also, it looks like a beautiful part of the English countryside. 

 

14 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Not really near me, but the bridge out to Coronado Island from San Diego is my favorite bridge to cross. 11,179 feet long, with an 80 degree curve.

 

Awesome!  Practically a roller coaster.  Ha. 

Reading up on this one too.  It's a box girder / beam bridge.   At 11,000 feet, I wonder what the engineering logic is not to make this a cable stayed bridge.  Perhaps because the curve would make cable support impractical and unnecessary?  I'd be interested to know. 

8 hours ago, rangerx said:

 

The new Nipigon River bridge replaced an otherwise safe and functional bridge built one hundred years ago, but failed during the first cold snap.

Other than a rail bridge adjacent to it, the closure essentially severed Canada into two regions, being the only highway through the area. The only alternate route south of the Great Lakes, in the USA.

They don't make 'em like they used to.  And that's quite a detour, too.  Yikes. 

14 hours ago, zapatos said:

The favorite bridge near me is th Eads Bridge, financed by Andrew Carnegie. It opened in 1874 and is still in use today. It was the first all steel bridge, the first to exclusively use cantilever supports, and still has some of the deepest caissons ever sunk. Fifteen people died from "the bends" during its construction. 

To prove that the structure was safe they walked an elephant across it, because as everyone knew at the time, an elephant would not walk onto an unsafe structure. Science at its best!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eads_Bridge

 

 

Really appreciate the durability of those old, Gilded age structures.  They have a simple, yet proud aesthetic to them.  Great anecdote about the elephant too.  I can see someone picking up the daily newspaper back then and seeing that on the front page, and the local gossip in the town about whether it was safe or not.  Interesting stuff!

Edited January 20, 2018 by Alex_Krycek

[dimreepr]

This bridge is near me the worlds first iron bridge .

[John Cuthber]

Not where I live now, but where I grew up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Jubilee_Bridge

and it has been joined by another

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersey_Gateway

 

[Strange]

20 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Humber Bridge UK - Centre span 4626ft and 7283ft total.

That looks just like the (old) Severn Bridge. 

The Second Severn Crossing is pretty impressive:

20 hours ago, StringJunky said:

you could see the the tops of the towers leaning outwards which was due to the curvature of the Earth. 

Or is it just for structural reasons - to counter the weight of the bridge in the middle? (Not that I am suggesting the Earth is flat!)

[dimreepr]

17 minutes ago, Strange said:

The Second Severn Crossing is pretty impressive:

Or is it just for structural reasons - to counter the weight of the bridge in the middle? (Not that I am suggesting the Earth is flat!)

 

I watched them build it and crossed the former many times. The first was the first in many ways, not least the lightest.

[StringJunky]

34 minutes ago, Strange said:

Or is it just for structural reasons - to counter the weight of the bridge in the middle? (Not that I am suggesting the Earth is flat!)

i've seen it with my eyes after having it pointed out by my boss at the time but it's mentioned in Wiki.

Quote

The towers, although both vertical, are 36 mm (1.4 inches) farther apart at the top than the bottom due to the curvature of the earth. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Bridge

 It is  distinctly noticeable. I've tried to find a photo but I can't find one on t'internet.

Edited January 20, 2018 by StringJunky

[Janus]

The largest bridge near me is the Astoria-Megler bridge, at a bit over 4 miles in length.   Built in the late 1960's, it replaced the ferry that used to be the only way to cross the Columbia River without driving 47 miles inland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria–Megler_Bridge#/media/File:USACE_Astoria-Megler_Bridge.jpg

[Area54]

If we are talking bridges we have to include the three Forth bridges. (Will there ever be a fourth Forth?)

Furthest is the iconic cantilevered rail bridge. Next the 1964 suspension road  bridge whose construction I followed avidly via regular local TV News items. (It was for many years the longest suspension bridge in the world outside of the USA.) Closest is the newly opened Queensferry Crossing.

 

[rangerx]

Although not as spectacular as massive cable stayed or iron bridges, the floating bridges of the Algoma Central Railway are fascinating too, especially through a forbidding country-side of seemingly bottomless muskeg, mud and swamps.
 

 

[John Cuthber]

Fascinating, but are you sure it is floating?
How does it cope with seasonal changes in river level

[rangerx]

2 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Fascinating, but are you sure it is floating?
How does it cope with seasonal changes in river level

They are pile driven, but not to bedrock or footings. The sheer volume of pilings are what supports the structure. They float in the muskeg itself, freeze solid in winter, but don't sink in summer. They're not river, insomuch as open swamp crossings hence don't fluctuate or flow as radically across the seasons. High water conditions are always a concern in the spring, but that's not unique to just bridges, but the entire line itself. Stream crossings have normal culverts, concrete, iron or wooden spans.

They were driven by steam pile drivers at the turn of the 20th century and remain there today. Some are a couple of miles long and support the weight of entire freight trains.

I've never heard of, nor seen rail bridges built in this manner elsewhere, no less to these lengths.

[studiot]

Where the M5 motorway crosses the peat levels in Somerset it has to cross several rivers.

The bearing capacity of the peat is so low that it will not support even the motorway pavement slabs, let alone the bridges themselves.

A further complication is that the peat compresses down and subsides, over time, under the weight of the motorway.
So the ground levels are always changing.

The bridges are founded on very (unusually) deep piles and can be seen to be sticking up or apparantly rising out of the surrounding landscape.

The bridges incorporate up to 5 floating run-on run-off pavement slabs to maintain connection between the motorway and the bridges.

 

[John Cuthber]

It's a long standing problem.

Does the Chat moss crossing count as a bridge?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_and_Manchester_Railway#Construction

[studiot]

49 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

It's a long standing problem.

Does the Chat moss crossing count as a bridge?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_and_Manchester_Railway#Construction

Personally I would call it a causeway.

In highway terms a structure is officially a bridge if it spans 1 metre or more.

[Bender]

On 20-1-2018 at 5:20 PM, StringJunky said:

i've seen it with my eyes after having it pointed out by my boss at the time but it's mentioned in Wiki.

 It is  distinctly noticeable. I've tried to find a photo but I can't find one on t'internet.

Can you see a 36 mm difference on a 2000000 mm long bridge? I'm not surprised you didn't find a 60000 pixels wide photo of the bridge, required to have a difference of one pixel (which would be overwhelmed by the aberrations on even a very good lens).

[StringJunky]

 

23 minutes ago, Bender said:

Can you see a 36 mm difference on a 2000000 mm long bridge? I'm not surprised you didn't find a 60000 pixels wide photo of the bridge, required to have a difference of one pixel (which would be overwhelmed by the aberrations on even a very good lens).

The distance I was at, the towers were probably 18" apart with the bottom half cut off by trees. I was standing in  a 1000 hectare field. The towers are 156m high.

Edited January 22, 2018 by StringJunky

[Bender]

According to this article, which is the first on the subject I can access, humans make errors discriminating lines with an angular difference of 3 degrees. Granted, in the study the lines where only shows very briefly. I find it hard to believe you can see an angular difference of 0,01 degrees or 1 part in 4000, especially for lines 10 times shorter than the distance between them.

Perhaps lines in the trees or the field created an optical illusion? 

[dimreepr]

Mustn't forget this local first:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Suspension_Bridge

[Alex_Krycek]

7 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Mustn't forget this local first:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Suspension_Bridge

Impressive to be sure.  Here's another image. 

 

 

[StringJunky]

Nobody's mentioned water bridges. I find them rather amusing for some reason.