Showing posts with label Bridges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bridges. Show all posts

December 20 - Spanning Niagara Falls


  Posted on December 20, 2021


This is an update of my post published on December 20, 2010:




On this day in 1883, there was a “load test” and a ceremony for the opening of the Michigan Central Railway Bridge, a cantilever bridge that linked Niagara Falls, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York.


There had already been a first crossing of this bridge, complete with dignitaries, on December 6, followed by a second train with newspaper reporters, and a plaque had already been erected. On the December 20, in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 people, ten locomotives pulling twelve loaded gravel cars crossed the bridge going one direction while ten locomotives pulling twelve more loaded gravel cars crossed the bridge going the opposite direction. At 12:08 p.m.—the appointed time for the test—the trains passed each other, and both sets of track were fully occupied. The bridge passed the load test without a hitch, and the trains blew their whistles in celebration.

A banquet for 4,000 invited guests was held on the American side, and the rest of the crowd was allowed to walk back and forth across the bridge. (Actually, this bridge was meant for rail travel only, not for pedestrians, but on this special day, pedestrians were allowed.)

For more on this and other bridges, here is a history of bridges over Niagara Falls.


When we say "a bridge over Niagara Falls," we
mean a bridge over the Niagara River, near the falls.


What is a cantilever bridge?

  • A cantilever is a beam supported only on one end. Two such cantilevers meet at the center of a cantilever bridge. Note that different cantilever bridges can look quite...well, different!



Arguably the most famous cantilever bridge
is Scotland's Firth of Forth Bridge.

 
  • Explore bridge types here.

  • Another way cantilevers are used is in architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house design “Falling Water” uses cantilevers to create overhanging balconies. 



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September 14 – Penang Bridge Officially Opened to Traffic

Posted on September 14, 2018

Yeah, I didn't do enough of this (above).
Or any of this!
I didn't do enough fiddling around with materials and construction sets as a kid, and I didn't have a clue, for years, how bridges and arches and tunnels were made. Bridges, especially, used to puzzle me - how could they be built in deep water and especially in moving water. And really looooong bridges were that much more puzzling.

Hikers still use super primitive,
temporary bridges when necessary.
Of course, early humans and other animals have always used and made simple bridges like a log placed so that it crosses a stream. 

More complex bridges have been built since ancient times; Ancient Romans, for example, used mortar and arches to build strong bridges. 


Here is a video that shows three ways in which bridge supports are built in water.

Today is the anniversary of the opening of the Penang Bridge in Malaysia. It is is more than 8 miles long (more than 13 km long), and it connects a peninsula with an island.

When your whole nation is a peninsula and islands, you're
going to have to build a few bridges!

Above and below: two views of the Penang Bridge.



There are longer bridges in the world - longer bridges, even, in Malaysia! The officially longest bridge in the world is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. Many photos of this bridge look a bridge that goes from nowhere to nowhere - because you cannot see land at either end! 



But of course, the 24-mile (38-km) long bridge does go from somewhere to somewhere - it connects two sides of a lake.



Here is a video of some unusual and cool bridges. And here are a few pics of other assorted interesting bridges:

Ahhhhhh - I NEVER want to travel on this ultra-high bridge!
Found in France, the Millau Viaduct is the highest bridge in the world.

Oh, man, I went to Wuppertal, Germany, and I
didn't know to look for this cute LEGO bridge!

Cool - a nice LOW bridge. Found in the Netherlands -
and much more my style!
I'm not sure whether the rolling bridge (in London, U.K.)
or the wavy bridge (in Singapore) have any reason to
be this weird, other than the weirdness itself?





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January 31 – Anniversary of the Founding of Milwaukee

Posted on January 31, 2017


I read that Milwaukee formed, on this date in 1846, after the Milwaukee Bridge War.

I wondered, “Wait? The Milwaukee Bridge War? It wasn't about bridges, right? It was...a battle on a bridge? Maybe?”

Well, to some extent, it was about a bridge (or two or five!).

You see, back in the early 1800s, there was no city of Milwaukee (Wisconsin). Instead, there were three settlements on the Milwaukee River. Solomon Juneau started Juneautown on the east side of the river way back in 1818. Some sixteen years later, Byron Kilbourn started Kilbourntown on the west side of the river, and George W. Walker started Walker's Point to the south of the other two settlements.

Even though Juneautown had been in existence for more than a decade when Kilbourn founded his settlement, he didn't pay any attention to the street layout of Juneautown when laying out his own town. He even tried to make sure that his newer town was THE town – the one people knew about and used and shipped through and so forth. So, when he drew up maps, he showed the east side of the river being just an unnamed blank space, as if it were just wilderness. And he even lied to people traveling by steamer, telling them that Juneautown was just an Indian trading post.

People traveling across the river from Juneautown to Kilbourntown used ferry boats, but in 1840 the Wisconsin Territory's legislature ordered the construction of one or more bridge. Solomon Juneau helped build a bridge over Chestnut Street, and by 1842 four more bridges were build: one at Spring Street, one at Oneida, one connecting Juneautown to Walker Point, and one Kibourn built across another river.

Kilbourn was opposed to three out of the four bridges, finding only Spring Street bridge to be acceptable to his shipping business.

Several years went by. East-siders were getting upset that west-siders wouldn't help pay for bridge maintenance. Then, in 1845, Kilbourn's favorite bridge was rammed by a ship, and rumors started circulating among west-siders that it had been done on purpose by a ship's captain who had been paid off by the east-siders.

West-siders decided to have their revenge (even though the accident was probably just an accident) – and they grabbed some tools and took down their side of the Chestnut Street bridge.

You know what happens when one half of the bridge is taken down, don't you?


East-siders were mad and gathered up all the weapons they could find – including an old cannon – and prepared for war!

The cannon was aimed right for Byron Kilbourn's house. However, they held their fire when they heard that Kilbourn's daughter had just died.

West-siders decided to remove the Oneida bridge and use the pieces to repair the Spring Street bridge. Of course, that made the east-siders really mad – because now BOTH of their favored bridges were destroyed. Time to really take their revenge – the east-siders destroyed the Spring Street bridge and Kilbourn's bridge that crossed another river.

Aack!

The next few weeks were tense, but tempers slowly cooled. Eventually, at the end of that year, three new bridges were planned, and a month later the three settlements merged into one new entity called Milwaukee.





Also on this date:








Street Children's Day



























Chess composer Sam Lloyd's birthday







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