“There she is,” he says with understated pride as he swings out of the trap door on to the parapet connecting the twin towers holding the suspension cables. “One of the finest suspension bridges in the world.”
I am recycling this old blog post, written before the 50th birthday of the Forth Road Bridge. It is a small tribute to a remarkable public partnership which comes to an end after 50 years in June 2015 when FETA (Forth Estuary Transport Authority) hands over management of the bridge to Amey. See also Ray Perman’s blog.
Happy Birthday Forth Road Bridge, 49 years old 4th September 2013
Ah, I can still feel that weird mix of fear and excitement in my stomach and the quivering steel beneath my feet. News that the Forth Rail Bridge will be creating viewing platforms for the thrill of the paying public has got me digging through memories of the day I stood at the top of the Forth Road Bridge, much nearer to heaven than I really wanted to be, trying not to look down at the water 550 feet below.
I was with Bruce Grewar, bridgemaster of the suspension bridge just about to celebrate its 25th birthday. I had been asked to write a chapter about the house-keeping of the bridge for a book marking the anniversary, Silver Highway The Story of The Forth Road Bridge, which had followed fast on the publication of Bridge Across The Century The Story of The Forth Bridge. Both publications by Moubray House Press were the brainwave of an enterprising friend, the writer and editor Sheila MacKay, who had spotted the great wealth of human stories hidden in the construction of these massive engineering feats. And the photographs! Incredible images of iron and steel skeletons emerging from the depths of the river to tower above North and South Queensferry.
So there we stood, the bridgemaster and me, looking east towards ‘The Big Red One’, paying respect to a piece of engineering history “built with blood and sweat” while below us toy cars flowed endlessly across the much younger bridge which had taken its own cruel toll: seven men lost their lives in the six years of building. I have no head for heights so I had climbed into the lift inside the tower thinking I might not be able to open my eyes when we got to the top. But up there, as high as larks, the view takes control. And the narrow bridge between the twin towers has mercifully high and solid security walls. Even so my hands still break into a sweat when I read what I wrote almost 25 years ago:
From here riggers walk down the main cable confident with only handrails and safety harness to snap on to a support if needed. When the cables are being serviced or painted a moving car is clamped on to provide a completely enclosed structure to work in but it has to be hauled up the steep gradients. ‘By the time you have climbed to the top, you know it.’ But Grewar insists that work on the bridge is never ‘ a circus act.’
It was actually more nerve-wracking to climb down to the metal gantries running beneath the surface of the bridge to give access for repair, maintenance and eternal painting, a mere 200 feet above the glinting, cold grey water. Without the insulation of a car you discover that the huge metal framework shivers constantly in response to the movement of traffic.
In fact the greatest danger for bridge staff comes from the traffic above. Since the construction finished the only fatalities have been caused by traffic accidents. Or so Grewar told me in 1989. At that time 13.7 million cars crossed the bridge each year, paying a toll towards the cost of maintenance. Now there is no toll and an annual flow of 24 million cars.
When visitors climb to the viewing platform on the Forth Rail Bridge in a couple of years (and I will certainly be one of them) we will see another skeleton emerging from the water. The new Queensferry Crossing is being built to take the growing load of traffic off the suspension bridge although (as the Guardian’s Severin Carrell reports) there is now good evidence that the cables are no longer threatened by corrosion. The new bridge is another massive engineering challenge and perhaps it will become another source of wonder. I just happen to think it is not necessary. The ‘Silver Highway’ turns 50 next year and it is still one of the finest suspension bridges in the world.
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