Forth Bridge
Carries	Rail traffic
Crosses	Firth of Forth
Locale	Edinburgh, Inchgarvie and Fife, Scotland
Maintained by	Balfour Beatty under contract to Network Rail
Design	Cantilever bridge
Longest span	2 of 521. The Firth of Forth ( Scottish Gaelic: Linne Foirthe) is the Estuary or Firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows Edinburgh ( ˈɛdɪnb(ərə Dùn Èideann) is the Capital of Scotland and is its second largest city after Glasgow. Inchgarvie (occasionally "Inch Garvie" is a small island in the Firth of Forth. Fife ( Gaelic: Fìobha) is a Council area of Scotland, situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Balfour Beatty plc ( is a London -based Construction, Civil engineering and rail services company Network Rail is a British "not for dividend" Company limited by guarantee whose principal asset is Network Rail Infrastructure Limited a company limited A cantilever bridge is a Bridge built using Cantilevers structures that project horizontally into space supported on only one end 3 m (1710 ft)
Total length	2,528. 7 metres (8,296 ft)
Clearance below	150 feet (46 m)
AADT	190 - 200 trains per day
Opening date	March 4, 1890
Coordinates	56°00′02″N 3°23′19″W / 56.000421, -3.388726Coordinates: 56°00′02″N 3°23′19″W / 56.000421, -3.388726

For the nearby road bridge, see Forth Road Bridge. Annual average daily traffic, abbrevated AADT, is a measure used primarily in Transportation planning and transportation engineering. Events 51 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title Princeps iuventutis (head of the youth Year 1890 ( MDCCCXC) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. The Forth Road Bridge is a Suspension bridge in east central Scotland

The Forth Bridge is a cantilever, railway bridge over the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, to the east of the Forth Road Bridge, and 14 km (9 miles) west of central Edinburgh. A cantilever bridge is a Bridge built using Cantilevers structures that project horizontally into space supported on only one end "Railroad" and "Railway" both redirect here For other uses see Railroad (disambiguation. A bridge is a Structure built to span a Gorge, Valley, Road, railroad track, River, Body of water The Firth of Forth ( Scottish Gaelic: Linne Foirthe) is the Estuary or Firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. The Forth Road Bridge is a Suspension bridge in east central Scotland Edinburgh ( ˈɛdɪnb(ərə Dùn Èideann) is the Capital of Scotland and is its second largest city after Glasgow. It is often called the "Forth Rail Bridge" to distinguish it from the Forth Road Bridge. The Forth Road Bridge is a Suspension bridge in east central Scotland The bridge connects Scotland's capital Edinburgh with the Kingdom of Fife, and acts as a major artery connecting the north-east and south-east of the country. Fife ( Gaelic: Fìobha) is a Council area of Scotland, situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland Described as "the one internationally recognised Scottish landmark",^[1] it may be nominated by the British government as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 World Heritage Sites in Scotland are specific locations that have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage Programme list of sites of outstanding Cultural ^[2] The bridge and its associated railway infrastructure is owned by Network Rail Infrastructure Limited. Network Rail is a British "not for dividend" Company limited by guarantee whose principal asset is Network Rail Infrastructure Limited a company limited

Contents 1 History 2 Construction 3 Maintaining the Forth Bridge 4 Competition 5 Popular culture 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

History

Construction of an earlier bridge, designed by Sir Thomas Bouch, got as far as the laying of the foundation stone, but was stopped after the failure of another of his works, the Tay Bridge. Sir Thomas Bouch (ˈbaʊtʃ ( 25 February 1822 - 30 October 1880) was a Railway Engineer in Victorian Britain The Tay Bridge (sometimes unofficially the Tay Rail Bridge) is a Railway Bridge approximately two and a quarter miles (three and a half kilometres Bouch had proposed a suspension bridge but the public inquiry into the Tay bridge disaster showed that he had under-designed the structure and mistakenly used cast iron, which weakened the entire structure. This article is concerned with a particular type of suspension bridge the suspended-deck type Cast iron usually refers to grey cast iron, but identifies a large group of Ferrous Alloys which solidify with a Eutectic. On Bouch's death the project was handed over to Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, who designed a structure that was built by Sir William Arrol & Co. between 1883 and 1890. Sir John Fowler 1st Baronet KCMG ( 15 July 1817 &ndash 10 November 1898) was a Railway Engineer in Sir Benjamin Baker, KCB, KCMG, FRS ( 31 March 1840 - 19 May 1907) was an eminent British Sir William Arrol & Co was a leading Scottish Civil engineering business based in Glasgow. It was built in steel alone, being the first bridge to use that material. Steel is an Alloy consisting mostly of Iron, with a Carbon content between 0 Baker - "one of the most remarkable civil engineers Britain ever produced" - and his colleague Allan Stewart received the major credit for design and overseeing construction work. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927 Allan Stewart may refer to Allan Stewart (Jacobite, legendary Jacobite in "the Appin murder" who inspired both Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson

Construction

The bridge is, even today, regarded as an engineering marvel. Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and It is 2. 5 km (1. 5 miles) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of two main spans of 1,710 ft (520 m), two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft (51 m), and five of 25 ft (7. 6 m). ^[3] Each main span comprises two 680 ft (210 m) cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft (110 m) span girder bridge. A cantilever is a beam supported on only one end The beam carries the load to the support where it is resisted by moment and Shear stress. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft (21 m) diameter foot resting on a separate foundation. The southern group of foundations had to be constructed as caissons under compressed air, to a depth of 90 ft (27 m). In Geotechnical engineering, a caisson is a retaining watertight structure used for example to work on the foundations of a Bridge pier, At its peak, approximately 4,600 workers were employed in its construction. Initially, it was recorded that 57 lives were lost; however, after extensive research by local historians, the figure has been revised upwards to 98. ^[4] Eight men were saved by boats positioned in the river under the working areas.

Hundreds more were left crippled by serious accidents, and one log book of accidents and sickness had 26,000 entries. In 2005, a project was set up by the Queensferry History Group to establish a memorial to those workers who died during the bridge's construction. In North Queensferry, a decision was also made to set up memorial benches to commemorate those who died during the construction of both the rail and the road bridges, and to seek support for this project from Fife Council.

More than 55,000 tons of steel were used, as well as 18,122 m³ of granite and over eight million rivets. Granite (ˈɡrænɪt is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, Felsic, igneous rock. A rivet is a mechanical Fastener. Before it is installed it consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end The bridge was opened on March 4, 1890 by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who drove home the last rivet, which was gold plated and suitably inscribed. Events 51 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title Princeps iuventutis (head of the youth Year 1890 ( MDCCCXC) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common ^[5] A contemporary materials analysis of the bridge, circa 2002, found that the steel in the bridge is of good quality, with little variation.

The use of a cantilever in bridge design was not a new idea, but the scale of Baker's undertaking was a real pioneering effort, afterwards extensively followed in different parts of the world. A cantilever is a beam supported on only one end The beam carries the load to the support where it is resisted by moment and Shear stress. Much of the work done was without precedent, including calculations for incidence of erection stresses, provisions made for reducing future maintenance costs, calculations for wind pressures made evident by the Tay Bridge disaster, the effect of temperature stresses on the structure, and so on. The Tay Bridge (sometimes unofficially the Tay Rail Bridge) is a Railway Bridge approximately two and a quarter miles (three and a half kilometres

Where possible, the bridge used natural features such as Inchgarvie, an island, the promontories on either side of the firth at this point, and also the high banks on either side. Inchgarvie (occasionally "Inch Garvie" is a small island in the Firth of Forth. Firth is the Lowland Scots word used to denote various coastal waters in Scotland.

The bridge has a speed limit of 50mph for passenger trains and 20mph for freight trains. The weight limit for any train on the bridge is 1,422 tonnes (1,442,000 kg) although this is waived for the frequent coal trains, provided two such trains do not simultaneously occupy the bridge. The route availability code is RA8, meaning any current UK locomotive can use the bridge, which was designed to accommodate the heavier steam locomotives. A steam locomotive is a Locomotive powered by Steam. The term usually refers to its use on Railways but can also refer to a "road locomotive"

Up to 190-200 trains per day crossed the bridge in 2006. ^[6]

Maintaining the Forth Bridge

A structure like the Forth Bridge needs constant maintenance and the ancillary works for the bridge included not only a maintenance workshop and yard but a railway "colony" of some fifty houses at Dalmeny Station. The track on the bridge is of "waybeam" construction: 12 inch square baulks of timber 6 metres long are bolted into steel troughs in the bridge deck and the rails are fixed on top of these special sleepers known as waybeams. In 1992 the bridge was re-railed with standard BS113A rail(54 kg/m). Prior to 1992 the rails on the bridge were of a unique "Forth Bridge" Section.

Although modern trains put fewer stresses on the bridge than the earlier steam trains, the bridge needs constant maintenance, and this is currently undertaken by Balfour Beatty under contract to Network Rail. Balfour Beatty plc ( is a London -based Construction, Civil engineering and rail services company Network Rail is a British "not for dividend" Company limited by guarantee whose principal asset is Network Rail Infrastructure Limited a company limited ^[7]

"Painting the Forth Bridge" is a colloquial term for a never-ending task (a modern rendering of the myth of Sisyphus), coined on the erroneous belief that, at one time in the history of the bridge, repainting was required and commenced immediately upon completion of the previous repaint. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus ( Greek: Σίσυφος, Latinized: Sisyphus (ˈsɪsɨfəs was a King punished in According to a 2004 New Civil Engineer report on contemporary maintenance, such a practice never existed, although under British Rail management, and before, the bridge had a permanent maintenance crew. New Civil Engineer is the weekly magazine of the Institution of Civil Engineers, (ICE the UK Chartered body that oversees the practice of Civil engineering See also Rail transport in Great Britain, National Rail, Network Rail This article is about the defunct entity "British Railways"

A contemporary repainting of the bridge commenced with a contract award in 2002, for a schedule of work expected to continue until March 2009, involving the application of 20,000 m² of paint at a cost estimate of £13M a year. This new coat of paint is expected to have a life of at least 25 years. In 2008 the total cost was revised upwards to £180M, and projections for finishing the job to 2012. ^[8]

In a report produced by JE Jacobs, Grant Thornton and Faber Maunsell in 2007 which reviewed the alternative options for a second road crossing, it was stated that the estimated working life of the Forth Rail Bridge was in excess of 100 years. ^[9]

Competition

The Forth Road Bridge is another popular crossing of the Firth. The Forth Road Bridge is a Suspension bridge in east central Scotland

In 2007, in a two week trial jointly funded by SEStran and StageCoach, a passenger hovercraft ran between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh. A hovercraft, or air-cushion vehicle (ACV is an Amphibious vehicle or craft, designed to travel over any sufficiently smooth surface supported by [1] Video of landing at Edinburgh

The new Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine rail link under construction will divert coal trains from the bridge. The Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine rail link was a project to re-open a railway line between the towns of Stirling, Alloa and Kincardine in Scotland Instead they will travel via Stirling to Longannet Power Station. Longannet power station is a large coal-fired Power station on the upper Firth of Forth near Kincardine on Forth, Fife, With this, there is a possibility that freight restrictions will be lifted and the potential of increasing trains from 10 tph (trains per hour) to 12 tph.

Popular culture

• The bridge is featured prominently in a scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film The 39 Steps and even more so in the 1959 remake. Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 The 39 Steps is a 1935 Film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the adventure Novel The Thirty-nine Steps The 39 Steps is a 1959 thriller directed by Ralph Thomas, starring Kenneth More and Taina Elg, based on the novel The
• The bridge long featured in posters advertising the soft drink Barr's Irn Bru, with the slogan: Made in Scotland, from girders
• The bridge was lit up red for BBC's Comic Relief in 2005
• A countdown clock to the millennium was placed on the bridge in 1998. Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand Soft drink is a beverage that does not contain Alcohol. Carbonated soft drinks are commonly known as soda soda pop pop, or AG Barr plc ( LSE Stockcode BAG is a Scottish Soft drinks manufacturer based in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, Scotland Irn-Bru (pronounced iron brew ˈaɪɚn ˈbruː is a popular carbonated Soft drink produced in Scotland. A slogan is a memorable Motto or Phrase used in a Political, commercial, Religious and other context as a repetitive expression of A girder is a support beam used in Construction. Girders often have an I beam cross section for strength but may also have a box shape Z shape Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character or scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work often to relieve tension
• The Bridge, a novel by Iain Banks, is mainly set on a fictionalised version of the bridge. The Bridge is a Novel by Scottish author Iain Banks. It was published in 1986 Iain Menzies Banks (born on 16 February 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife) is a Scottish Writer.
• In Alan Turing's most famous paper about artificial intelligence, one of the challenges put to the subject of an imagined Turing test is "Please write me a sonnet on the subject of the Forth Bridge". Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (ˈt(jʊ(ərɪŋ (23 June 1912 &ndash 7 June 1954 was an English Mathematician The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a Machine 's ability to demonstrate intelligence The test subject in Turing's paper answers, "Count me out on this one. I never could write poetry". ^[10]
• The Kincaid Rail bridge in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is based on this bridge. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is a sandbox-style action-adventure computer and Video game developed by Rockstar North The designer, Rockstar North, is based in Edinburgh. Rockstar North Ltd (formerly DMA Design Ltd) are developers of computer and video games based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• The process of painting the bridge presumably inspired Tom Stoppard's radio play Albert's Bridge. Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE (born 3 July 1937 is a British Screenwriter playwright

• Sebastien Foucan, a French freerunner, crawled along one of the highest points of the bridge, without a harness, for the Jump Britain documentary made by Channel 4. Sébastien Foucan (born May 24 1974 in Paris, France) is a French actor of Guadeloupean descent Free running is a physical art, in which participants (free runners use the urban and rural areas to perform movements through its structures focused on Channel 4 is a public-service Television and Radio broadcaster in the United Kingdom centred around a television channel of the same name which began
• Linus points out the bridge from the airplane in the 1980 Peanuts film, Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!!) as they approached Heathrow Airport. Linus may refer to As a name: Linus Torvalds, a programmer the creator of the Linux kernel Pope Linus, the second Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!! is a 1980 Animated film produced by United Feature Syndicate for Paramount Pictures, directed The Forth Bridge is 273 nautical miles (506 km) north of Heathrow, but is generally visible on the approach to Edinburgh Airport. Edinburgh Airport is located in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was the busiest Airport in Scotland in 2007 handling 9047558 passengers
• Robin Laing, a Scottish folk singer, recorded a song about the structure and Ben Baker entitled "The Forth Bridge"

References

Further reading

• Charles Matthew Norrie (1956). Bridging the Years - a short history of British Civil Engineering. Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd.
• Arnold Koerte, Firth of Forth, Firth of Tay, Birkhauser Verlag (1992), ISBN 0-8176-2444-9
• New Civil Engineer 5th February 2004, page 18. New Civil Engineer is the weekly magazine of the Institution of Civil Engineers, (ICE the UK Chartered body that oversees the practice of Civil engineering
• Peter R. Lewis, Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879, Tempus, 2004, ISBN 0-7524-3160-9.
• McKean, Charles, Battle for the North: The Tay and Forth Bridges and the 19th Century Railway Wars, Granta Books, (August 7, 2006), ISBN 1-86207-852-1.

External links

• Forth Bridges Visitor Centre Trust - Rail Bridge Main
• Forth Bridge Memorial
• Forth Rail Bridge in the Structurae database

Structurae is an online Database containing works of structural and Civil engineering of all kinds such as Bridges High-rise buildings

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