construction

the hanging bridge of bilbao

by deputydog ⋅ 24 / 06 / 2007 ⋅ post a comment

don’t worry, i’m not about to tell you about a bridge that couples as a popular execution spot.

i came across a picture of the ‘hanging bridge of bilbao’ yesterday and couldn’t for the life of me work out why i’d never seen one before or how it functioned.

here’s the photo i looked at using my eyes…

bilbao bridge

my first thought was that the span of the bridge could be lowered when ship traffic was absent but i was wrong.

bilbao bridge

the beast’s proper name is a ‘transporter bridge’ and they’re pretty frikkin’ rare these days, only 8 are still currently used worldwide. if you look at the bottom right of the photo there’s a ‘gondola’ - this is what transports the traffic from one side to the other - and it’s connected to the span by, hopefully, really fucking strong metal wires.

bilbao bridge

i found a video of bilbao’s bridge in action….

there’s 2 of the bastards in the uk that are in use and i still didn’t know of ‘em.

just in case you’re interested there’s a list of all known transporter bridges on wikipedia here.

discussion

4 comments for “the hanging bridge of bilbao”

  1. simán építek egy ijjjet

    posted by zolii | 26th of June, 2007, 2:05 pm

  2. There’s one in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s out of service now, it was used to transport the tramway over the river Riachuelo (the word means little river in a derogative way).
    You can see it here
    http://www.histarmar.com.ar/MOP/VN-Puentes.htm
    The picture saying “Riachuelo - Nuevo Puente N. Avellaneda - 26-I-1940″ is a rising bridge (Avellaneda) on the front and the transporting bridge (named Bosch) behind.
    There’s another transporting bridge in the picture “Puente Patricios - Vista del conjunto - Noviembre 1916″ but it’s gone now.

    posted by James Wolfenstein | 26th of June, 2007, 5:19 pm

  3. One of them in UK is in Newport, South Wales

    posted by Alan | 5th of July, 2007, 9:17 pm


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