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Forth Rail Bridge
In 1873, the Forth Bridge Railway Company that was formed to build a railway bridge across the Firth of Forth. Up to this point, travellers crossed the Forth on ferries that ran between the ports of North and South Queensferry. For a while there was also a train ferry that ran between Granton in Edinburgh and Burntisland in Fife; Thomas Bouch, the designer of the Tay Bridge, designed a ferry, the Leviathon, to transport the train carriages across the Forth. Bouch was approached to design a rail bridge and work progressed as far as the laying of the foundations. Then, in December 1879, the Tay Bridge collapsed during a storm; a train was crossing at the time and all seventy-five passengers and crew on board were lost. As a result, his design for the Forth crossing was scrapped; the foundation can still be seen at the western end of Inchgarvie, next to the middle cantilever of the bridge that was started in 1883. This bridge was designed by John Fowler and Benjamin Baker; William Arrol was chosen as the contractor to build this bridge and his company was also responsible for the replacement Tay Bridge. The Forth Bridge was completed in 1890 at a cost of £2½ million; around 55,000 tonnes of steel, over 18,000 cubic metres/640,000 cubic feet of granite and over 8 million rivets were used during the construction of the bridge. Approximately 4,600 men were used to build the bridge; it is believed 57 men lost their lives during the construction, although according to research by the Queensferry History Group this could be as high as 98, and hundreds more were crippled. The Forth Bridge has been described as the one internationally recognised Scottish landmark and it certainly attracts many visitors to South Queensferry; the bridge has been proposed as an addition to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. However, it should not be forgotten the bridge is still in active use and carries up to 200 trains across the Forth each day. |
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