Monday, August 28, 2017

The Major Edinburgh Bridges In Historical Order

Problem
I can't work out which bridge is which.

Answer
You will find loads of detailed information on construction on Wiki plus links to newspaper articles and can spend hours on it (as I have) but here's a simplified version.
Let's take the four well known bridges in historical order.

1 The Tay Bridge Disaster (Railway)
This was immortalised by the dreadful doggerel of William McGonagal.  This is the one I heard about in English lessons in school and it's quoted all over the place and in poetry anthologies and examples of how not to write a poem. The Tay is not Edinburgh. Edinburgh is on the Forth.

2 The Queensferry Bridge (Road)
Open 30 Aug 2017. (Pedestrians could take a look earlier.)

3 The Firth of Forth Bridge (Railway)

4 Queensferry Crossing (Road bridge)
Cable stay bridge.
Two lanes in each direction, total four lanes.

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

***
Now let's get up to date and concentrate on the three major bridges:

When you drive up to Edinburgh from London or take the train you are going to cross one of these major bridges with spectacular views.

Three main bridges linking Edinburgh and Scotland to the south (England).















1 The Queensferry Bridge (Road)
Open 30 Aug 2017. (Pedestrians could take a look earlier.)







From Wikipedia.

Oops. Those cables are wearing out. The bridge had much more traffic than originally intended. We need a new road bridge, just in case it ever collapses completely, or rather we see in advance that it will be unsafe, and to prevent that, less traffic on this one.

2 The Firth of Forth Bridge (Railway)
The red railway bridge.
From Wikipedia.

3 Queensferry Crossing (Road bridge)
Cable stay bridge.
Two lanes in each direction, total four lanes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensferry_Crossing
I find it confusing to have the two road bridges similarly named but this name was chosen by popular vote.
(How I remember: The new crossing made environmentalists cross because they wanted a tunnel.)
The new Crossing involved demolishing a landmark lighthouse and excavations revealed the oldest archaeological find of a dwelling in Scotland.
From Wikipedia.

More information:
List of Edinburgh bridges and links to pages on them in wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bridges_in_Edinburgh

Author,
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages. See my other posts. Please share links to your favourite posts.



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