Forth Rail Bridge
The Forth Rail Bridge is a railway bridge over the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, to the east of the Forth Road Bridge, and west of Edinburgh.
Forth Rail Bridge, Edinburgh
The earlier bridge project got as far as the laying of the foundation stone, but was doomed to failure due to the collapse of the Tay Rail Bridge, designed by Sir Thomas Bouch who had also submitted the Forth Rail Bridge design.
The present day bridge is, even today, regarded as an engineering marvel. It consists of three massive cantilever towers, each 104 m tall. The designers were Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, and the bridge was constructed by Sir William Arrol between 1883 and 1890. 57 lives were lost during construction, and more than 55,000 tons of steel were used, as well as 18,122 cubic metres of granite and eight million rivets. The bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who drove home that last rivet which was gold plated and suitably inscribed. A contemporary materials analysis of the bridge, circa 2002, found that the steel in the bridge is of good quality, with litle variation.
Although modern lightweight trains put fewer stresses on the bridge than the earlier heavy steam trains, the bridge is reputed to need constant maintenance. "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 there was ever a time in the history of the bridge when repainting was required and commenced immediately upon finishing the last repainting job. According to a 2004 New Civil Engineer report on contemporary maintenance, such a practice never existed, although it is the case that under British Rail management, and before, the bridge had a permanent maintenance crew.
The current 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 painting at a cost estimate of ÃÂã10M a year.