CS4 Posts

[mesklin]

Bob

http://talkingscot.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-40

Dave

[Moonwatcher]

Thanks for the old photo Dave. For those who may be interested, this 1890 photo would have been taken shortly after the bridge was opened. It’s taken from the south shore of the Firth of Forth, from the hill overlooking the eastern edge of the town of South Queensferry. The long slipway running out alongside the bridge serves the ferry which ran between the north and south shores – the ferry continued to run up until the 60s I believe and the slipway is still there. The group of buildings sitting almost under the bridge belong to the old coaching inn – The Hawes Inn. It’s still going strong to this day. The yard behind the main building is now a beer garden, but in the years prior to this photo it served as casualty receiving area and mortuary for the casualties brought in from the constuction site. 52 fatalities were officially recorded during the 9 year construction and hundreds more injured, many seriously. The Hawes was blamed for many of these accidents. ‘Briggers’ were rough, hard drinking men and the Hawes, which is said to have had the longest bar in Britain at the time, was only too happy to supply the goods to the thirsty workers. It is said that at shift changes, 200 pints of beer would be pulled and lined up on the bar ready for those coming off shift. In the latter years the bar was closed in an attempt to reduce the accident rate.

The photo has been ‘colourised’ and doesn’t therefore show the bridge in it’s characteristic red. The red lead paint used for the bridge was made specially by an Edinburgh paint company who still supply the same paint for the bridge to this day.

The Forth Bridge has become a national symbol of Scotland. I’m proud of my family’s association with it.

Bob.

[mesklin]

Bob

Postcard belongs to JP, who kindly allowed me to put it on site. Thanks, Jean.

Dave

[DavidWW]

The following will be of interest.

Firstly, from Wikipedia.org ............

QUOTE
"Painting the Forth bridge" is a colloquial term for a never-ending task (a modern rendering of the myth of Sisyphus ), coined on the erroneous belief that there was ever a time in the history of the bridge when repainting was required and commenced immediately upon finishing the last repainting job. According to a 2004 New Civil Engineer report on contemporary maintenance, such a practice never existed, although it is the case that under British Rail management, and before, the bridge had a permanent maintenance crew.

A contemporary repainting of the bridge commenced with a contract award in 2002, for a schedule of work expected to continue until March 2009, involving the application of 20,000 m 2 of paint at a cost estimate of £10M a year.
ENDQUOTE

A new "paint" is being used, - this from the manufacturer's web site........

QUOTE
This riveted structure is over 100 years old and its complex design is a challenge for any paint system. Access is a major cost on this project and therefore Network Rail has selected a coating system designed to give a service life of 25 years to first major maintenance. The existing paintwork is being removed by dry abrasive blast-cleaning prior to the application of a glass flake epoxy coating system, which comprises; anticorrosion epoxy blast primer Leigh’s Transguard (TG) 223, glass flake epoxy intermediate coat TG123 and acrylic urethane finish TG168. An additional stripe coat of the glass flake epoxy is applied to relevant areas such as rivet heads (of which there are 6½ million). The total minimum dry film thickness (dft) of the system is 500µm but an additional coat of the glass flake epoxy (at 400µm dft) is applied to the splash zone areas. The modern two pack finish coat is manufactured to match the colour shade of the original Forth Rail Bridge Red Standard.
ENDQUOTE

For anyone interested in detailed info on the bridge the http://www.forthbridges.org.uk/railbridgemain.htm site is worth a browse.

Davie

[JustJean]

I'm happy to have been able to share the postcard and in the process learn so much I never would have known. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and information. The card was postmarked at 1pm, Oct 1 '06 from Edinburgh to Adam Keltie then residing in Dedham, Mass., USA. This one has no corresponding postmark when received in Dedham but I do have other postcards from this era that are so stamped. Seems that the average delivery took about 12-14 days. Pretty good record considering it can still sometimes take that long or longer 100 years later!

Jean

[StewL]

Another brig

I believe that our famous bridge here on Oz, the coathanger, as it is known by here. Is actually in the continual flux of being painted. They start at one end, and when they have finished they go back and start again. Maybe they could have a look at that new paint Davie mentioned then