THE AMAZING QUEENSFERRY CROSSING!

I was in Scotland over the weekend and visited South Queensferry where the new Queensferry Crossing has just been finished and what a feat of engineering it is. The new bridge, the Queensferry Crossing, is an amazing structure and opened on 30 August 2017. The 1.7 mile (2.7km) structure is the longest three-tower, cable-stayed bridge in the world and also by far the largest to feature cables which cross mid-span. 23,000 miles of cabling, 35,000 tonnes of steel and 150,000 tonnes of concrete were used to construct it. This innovative design provides extra strength and stiffness, allowing the towers and the deck to be more slender and elegant at a total cost of over £1.35 billion.

It sits along side the original rail bridge which was the world's first major steel structure and represented a key milestone in the history of modern railway civil engineering. The 1.5 mile (2.5 km) structure was completed in 1890 and took eight years to build at a cost of £3.2 million. 53,000 tonnes of steel and 6.5 million rivets were used to construct it! The bridge's piers are constructed from 120,000 cubic yards of concrete and masonry, faced with 2 ft thick granite. The total painted area of the Forth Bridge is 230,000 sq metres, requiring 240,000 litres of red paint. The bridge still holds the record as the world’s longest cantilever rail bridge, is an iconic symbol of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

These two amazing structures sit alongside the Forth Road Bridge which was opened in 1964. The Forth Road Bridge is one of the world’s most significant long span suspension bridges. With a main span of 1006 metres between the two towers, it was the fourth longest in the world and the longest outside the United States when it opened. In total, the is over 1.5 mile (2.5 km) long structure consumed a staggering 39,000 tonnes of steel and 125,000 cubic metres of concrete in its construction.The final bill for construction amounted to £19.5 million.