Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge in Action in Centenary Year 2011

Get notified of my videos on Twitter @videosbloke. The Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge has been a symbol of the Teeside area since it was opened in 1911. There are only two other Transporter Bridges still in existence in Britain; one at Newport in Wales, opened in 1906, and the other in Warrington, opened in 1916. The passenger gondola is suspended by steel cables and runs on a wheel and rail system about 49 metres above the River Tees. The Bridge is 259 metres long which makes it the longest of those remaining in the world. Its cantilever construction has three main spans that give it its unique appearance. The bridge is, effectively, two almost independent structures joined at the centre of the River. Each half of the bridge has an anchor span of 42.6 metres and then cantilevers across the river some 87 metres from the tower to meet its twin from the opposite bank. Although the Middlesbrough bridge is the largest operational Transporter, the largest bridge ever of this type was 304.7 long, built over the River Mersey near Widnes. That bridge closed in 1961 and has now been demolished. Altogether, only about twenty Transporter Bridges appear to have been constructed around the world, of which only eleven still exist and even fewer are still in regular use. The first one, near Bilbao in Spain, opened in 1893, and all such bridges were constructed in the 23 years between 1893 and 1916. The Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge remains fully operational and provides a regular quarter-hourly service between Middlesbrough on the south bank of the Tees and Port Clarence on the north side for 18 hours a day, crossing the river in two minutes.

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Science & Technology

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• middlesbrough
• transporter bridge
• middlesbrough bridge
• teeside
• river tees
• tees
• cantilever
• port clarence
• edwardian engineering
• victorian engineering
• samsung galaxy s2
• british engineering

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Reminds me of old Tyne Tees reports from the 70's. Albert Clack, class name...